


Gastertale

by timidphantom



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, Eye Trauma, F/F, F/M, Fake Science, Gaster is main character, Gender Dysphoria, Gender-Neutral Chara, Heavy Angst, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Misgendering, More tags will be added later, Multi, Original Character(s), Pre-Undertale, SOUL Mechanics (Undertale), Soul Sex, Suicidal Thoughts, Tentacle Dick, Torture, Trans Character, Villain Protagonist, deaf grillby, in which gaster is satan, that's really not central to the fic tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-29 15:26:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 64
Words: 191,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7689868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timidphantom/pseuds/timidphantom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Asriel Dreemur and his beloved sibling's death, Royal Scientist Wingdings Gaster finds himself presented with an opportunity to experiment on the only human soul in the Underground. Faced with obstacle after obstacle, Gaster finds he may have to embrace darker methods to achieve his goal of breaking the Barrier - methods that there may be no returning from.</p><p> </p><p>Updates when it updates.<br/>Fridays, mainly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hotland 199X

“Entry one. Not too many years ago in the grand scheme of things, yet a lifetime to many, the humans drove monsters beneath the mountain and sealed them away, fearing the power inherent in their magic-based souls. But that is ancient history now to most – few still live that were there; fewer still possess a mortal soul.”

“Shall we talk more recent? Hotland, 199X, March 27 th . Why do we keep track of the days? We don’t have a climate, nor a day cycle...” the tall bone-wrought figure of Gaster paused from his toneless words into his digital recorder, a grimace settling on his face. “March 27 th . 13:00 hours. The human soul was delivered and processed. The king and queen looked on tearfully as I locked it up. They want something good to come of that child’s death – I understand that. But I fear that I, by extension, may be too close to this research.”

The towering skeleton paused briefly, teeth clicking shut as he firmly pressed the “delete” button on his recorder with a bony digit. The lights in his sockets seemed to dim as he restarted the recording.

“Entry one. Hotland, 199X, March 27 th . Today, at 13:00 hours, the human soul was delivered and processed. Experiments will commence tomorrow once it has settled in and accepted its fate. There is still too much fight left in it now.”

Gaster flicked the switch off the recorder and frowned pensively through the two-way mirror, observing the SOUL’s dim red glow as it flickered within the vessel it was held captive in. He had seen human souls before, but none had glowed quite so brightly even after death. He swore he could feel it watching him, waiting, although logically -

“heya,” the voice coming from behind Gaster made him start in surprise and he swung swiftly around, glowering down at waist-height to confront the interloper. “i was gonna say, “didn’t mean to make ya jump out of your skin,” but i suspect you’re not in the mood for my Sans-sational jokes at the moment.”

Gaster relaxed involuntarily as he looked at the bright lights peering up at him from the stout skeleton’s sockets, accompanied by a wide grin. “You ought to find a better use for your gifts than arranging one of your awful puns,” he sighed, looking away from Sans’ expectant gaze.

“y’know, i know you have a sense of  _ humerus –  _ i can see it,” Sans piped, pointing at a small section of Gaster’s wrist bone that was exposed as his lab coat’s sleeve slipped upwards as he touched a skeletal hand to his chin.

“That only makes me question your knowledge of anatomy,” Gaster muttered, his eyes locked onto the human soul. Its attention had moved now; it glimmered a little brighter, hovering close to the walls of its containment. There was only one thing that it could be looking at now.

“what can i say, i have a thick skull. doctors always told m-” Sans trailed off before he was done his next quip, and Gaster heard the familiar  _ ping!  _ of his magic switching on. Pale gold light reflected from Sans’ sockets onto the two-way glass. “is that the human?” the skeleton spoke quietly, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

“What is left of it, anyways,” Gaster agreed, watching as bluish sweat beaded up on the other skeleton’s skull.

“jeez, that seems so unnatural,” the other muttered, scratching at his head. “just floatin’ there. who’d’ve thought it?”

“I saw a few in my time,” Gaster replied quietly, shooting a sidelong glance at the boy as the light faded away from his eyes. “But this one is especially full of life. It is like it wants to know what happens next – like it is determined to live. Hm... Fascinating.”

“...can i go in?” Sans burst out suddenly – eagerly, even. “i just wanna get a closer look,” he added, trying to sound a little bit more aloof. Truthfully, he swore that he could feel the soul calling to him, but if he said that to Gaster, it was a sure way to be removed from the project altogether.

Curiosity was healthy, of course, and a nice change from how indifferent Sans could often be, but still Gaster felt reluctant. Yet, it was only a soul – formless, powerless, sustained only by some strange stubbornness. It couldn’t possibly  _ hurt  _ anyone.

“Very well, you may go in,” the scientist murmured, pulling firmly at the sleeve of his labcoat before pressing the button to unlock the door and typing in his passcode. “But, Sans... well, it is not dangerous, and yet... I feel you should keep a safe distance. When it was alive, this creature was full of malice and ill intent – and the soul carries that still.”

Sans’ grin remained in place as Gaster spoke, and he chuckled deeply as the door slid open, shedding brighter light on the observation room. “so  _ serious,  _ doc. Are you trying to chill me to the  _ bone?”  _ he snorted, stepping quickly through the door.

Watching Gaster’s face for a reaction, Sans found himself disappointed as usual. “i’ll get a smile outta you someday, you know,” he called across the room to the scientist.

Gaster hit the button again, sliding the door shut behind Sans, while shaking his head tiredly. “Thick skull, indeed,” he said quietly, watching the boy peer closely at the red soul hovering inside the stasis chamber. The two seemed locked in a strange staring contest for some time, then the iridescence around the soul began to flicker steadily, on and off, like a signal. And although he couldn’t see it, Gaster felt the crackle of blue magic shining back from Sans’ skull.

The scientist reached for his audio recorder and switched it on as quickly as his bony hands would allow. “Entry two. My assistant, Sans, has met the human – er – seen the soul. It seems to have some sentience about it yet – glowing intermittently with power, responding to the boy’s presence. I think – oh, Gods, how to say this – I think that the soul is calling for help.”

  
  
  
  


And somebody came.

Not a day after what was left of the ragged Dreemurr family had handed over the only human soul in the Underground – twenty hours and forty-three minutes, according to records – Toriel let herself into the lab and demanded that Gaster return the soul.

The scientist felt an unfamiliar ache in his chest, seeing her this way; snow-white fur ruffled and matted, eyes red from countless tears shed. But it was her rage, her readiness to  _ fight  _ which brought emotions back to Gaster; they echoed from the past, bounced around in his hollow chest cavity. In that moment, with her paws held up at her sides, flames dancing around and sending her robe ruffling in the hot wind, he wanted to tell her that he still loved her. He parted his teeth to say it.

“Now, now, you do not need to get so  _ fired  _ up,” the scientist rumbled. Toriel’s paws dropped, the fire swirling around her sizzling out in puffs of smoke.

Standing there, the queen thought of years long past, before the war, before she’d married Asgore, before everything had fallen apart as easily as a soul without a body. The fury died out of her eyes and she wiped tears away, streaking her fur with dampness.

When she was young and foolish, she’d thought that she would marry Gaster, and their union would bring together two ancient and powerful monster races – but it was merely a selfish dream of a princess, the type that she’d been forced to grow out of in spite of heartache. In that moment, memories held warmly to her chest in spite of years long gone and blood spilled, she wanted to tell him that she’d once loved him. She opened her muzzle.

“Well, you know how  _ hotheaded  _ I get when it comes to those that I love,” Toriel growled, barely able to keep the tremble out of her voice. “But I am  _ not _ joking. You will take me to them.”

Gaster felt a cold, hard stone form in his abdomen. He’d had a sinking feeling, after his mutinous assistant had seen the soul, that the young skeleton would go to the Dreemurrs as soon as he was dismissed – but he had expecting Asgore.

“Where is your husband?” Gaster inquired stonily, looking towards the entrance of the Lab as if expecting the king to lumber in at any moment, adding his demands to Toriel’s.

“My ex-husband,” Toriel began, reflecting Gaster’s frown, “is likely at home, resting after the royal decree he put out just a few hours ago, declaring war on all humans who fall here so that he may break the barrier and exact revenge. A thought that I have doubts was his own. Asgore has always been a coward and an oaf.”

The harshness of her voice surprised Gaster, but he took care to remain neutral.

“But this – did  _ you _ put this idea into his head?” the words were more than an accusation; they also came as an iron-hard reminder of the days before the war, when Asgore had failed to put a stop to the scientist’s study of and experimentation on souls. Clearly, Toriel had never forgotten.

“Toriel, I have not acted as more than Asgore’s royal scientist in years – since before Asriel was born. Surely you recall. You asked me to take a step back from your family, and I have never betrayed that. I am unsure what it is worth to you now, but I give you my word,” the skeleton managed to remove emotions from his voice, but he knew that they still showed in the tired creases on his face and the way his jaw shook as he tried to smile. “I have not spoken to him as a friend in many years – much less as an advisor.”

The goat monster inspected Gaster with piercing crimson eyes for quite some time, cold and aloof, before finally crossing her arms over her chest and nodding once. “Very well. I will take your word – but I am still taking Chara. I will take them to the Ruins, where I will not have to hear any more of this mindless slaughter. Bring me to them.”

For a moment, the skeleton only gazed sadly at Toriel; then, he strode off, his long legs carrying him swiftly through dimmed tile corridors that were so quiet that even the footfalls of Toriel’s furry paws seemed to carry forever.

“It,” the scientist muttered darkly, suddenly, his tone sounding almost as if he was cursing rather than mentioning a simple pronoun.

“Pardon me?” Toriel questioned, sounding genuinely confused.

“It,” he repeated in a cold voice, closing his hands into fists with a loud creak of bone. “The soul is an it.  _ It  _ is not Chara. Chara died –  _ Asriel  _ died. This human soul is merely a stubborn echo of what is already gone, refusing to fall away from reality due to some unnatural will. It is only holding on to see what happens next – that is all. I know that it is the only physical thing you have left of Chara, but... holding onto a bundle of magic, held together by nothing but sheer force of will – it would be a mistake I...”

“I care too much for you to allow you to disillusion yourself,” Gaster concluded, instantly feeling angry with himself for his careless words. That wasn’t how he’d wanted Toriel to learn that lifetimes later and worlds away from where their lives had begun, his soul still glowed brighter for her.

“When did you lose your heart?” Toriel’s voice was barely audible, but Gaster felt her words gouge deep into his bones regardless, as if she had struck his soul. His steps faltered for a moment and he knew that there was so much that he could respond with, but nothing that he could truly  _ say.  _ She didn’t want his response; she wanted his guilt. He said nothing, kept walking.

By the time they reached the deepest part of the Lab, the hum of the CORE was audible, though faraway. Hearing it reminded Gaster of endless sleepless nights spent hunched over blueprints in the faltering light of magic crystals, desperately trying to bring light to the Underground before everybody that he knew died cold, scared and hungry in the dark. It had not been a happy time for anybody, and the skeleton was reluctant to say that things had improved.

When Gaster stopped in front of the door to the observation room, he began to wring his hands together uneasily. Toriel would soon see the soul, and surely she would discern that he had done something to it.

After Sans had left the Lab for the night, the royal scientist had spent the following dozen hours running tests and diagnostics as quickly as he could, plagued by a sinking feeling that he was running out of time.

With the limited time he had left, Gaster had managed to find the source of the soul’s livelihood and extract it, undamaged. He’d expected the soul to fall apart immediately, but even once it was safely back in stasis it held together. It no longer floated contently now, but laid in the bottom of the chamber, its glow dampened. If it was ever removed from the chamber, and the magic that kept it dormant, it would surely perish in a matter of minutes. It was as reality that Gaster was at ease with – he’d gotten what he required – but knowing that he would have to tell Toriel...

Gathering up his courage, the skeleton located the key he needed on his keychain and unlocked the door, stepping out of Toriel’s way as she stampeded past him, into the room, and pressed her paws to the two-way glass.

“Oh... what has happened to you, my child?” Gaster heard her utter softly, tearfully. “What has he done? What has that monster done to you?”

He chuckled quietly, darkly, as he thought: they were all monsters, but he was a  _ monster.  _ Slowly, the skeleton drifted into the room behind Toriel, staring into the dim room as shadows deepened beneath his sockets and the indents of his hollow cheekbones. Even though he knew what was waiting in the chamber, it still left a cold feeling in his abdominal cavity.

If anything, the soul’s glow had grown dimmer still, now looking more like a dull red stone, lying static behind the glass. Gaster silently typed the passcode into the terminal so that Toriel could enter, closing his eyes so that he didn’t have to see the tears dripping through white fur even if he could still hear the sobbing muffled by her paws. After a few minutes, Gaster followed her through the doorway into the sterile, stuffy room and disengaged the lock that kept the stasis chamber anchored to the floor. He lifted it easily by the top handle and extended the container to Toriel wordlessly.

“Fix them,” Toriel ordered tearfully, her eyes still locked on the pitiful hibernating soul. “I do not wish to know what you have done to my child, but you will fix them.”

The lights in Gaster’s sockets faded away as he gently set the glass contained down, letting his hand rest on it. “I cannot.”

“Cannot or will not?” Toriel snarled, her fur ruffling in the warm breeze that swept around her as she readied an attack against Gaster for the second time that day. The skeleton didn’t flinch, continuing to stare at the Queen through empty sockets.

“I cannot. You see, when I let my employee in to see the soul, I sensed that it was calling for help. I feared that he would listen. I knew that you or Asgore would return and take it from me before I could even begin my research. I could not allow Chara and Asriel’s death to be for nothing, so I focused on what I could – that remarkable human trait that keeps their bodies and souls in tact even after death. I found the node and dissected it from the soul.”

“If I were to remove the soul from stasis now, it likely would not even make it to the operating table, much less survive another operation,” the scientist’s voice remained steady, strictly factual, as he spoke.

It was the sound of cracking bone more than the sensation of being struck that frightened Gaster, and his skeletal hands flew to his face in shock, touching the crack that Toriel had just opened up beneath his eye. He didn’t speak a word, despite wanting to swear, to shout in pain or shock. His face burned with shame, the impact seeming insignificant in comparison. But Toriel seemed horrified that she’d struck him with enough rage to shatter bone and stepped back, almost tripping over her own paws.

Recovering from the shock of the blow, Gaster tucked his hands neatly behind his tailbone and smirked. “Take it and go, Toriel. I have much work to do; work that you are too kind and Asgore is too cowardly to do. I will find a way to bring down the Barrier with what I have. I can do this without killing a soul – I only need time and resources -”

“And LOVE,” the Queen interjected, glowering down her muzzle at Gaster. The skeleton stiffened, tipping his skull slightly as if inviting Toriel to continue. “LOVE changed you, a long time ago. Your research.. the souls you stole, ripped apart, studied... It is a stain you will  _ never _ be free from. You have gained too much LOVE to be loved now, Gaster. Even by me.”

Instantly she regretted the words; it was all wrong. She had never wanted him to know that before she had walked into the lab that day, though they were eons and miles away from where they’d met, she had still loved him. But not any more.

“You should go. If you see my assistant, you should tell him it would be wise to stay away from here, or something... unfortunate may happen to him,” Gaster spoke quietly, touching his fingers to the new crack in his face.

“Your assistant?” Toriel echoed,“if that is who left the letter...”

“Ah. So he was too cowardly to even tell you in person. I see,” Gaster observed, abruptly turning his back to Toriel and the soul. “I do not imagine I will see you again, but I will save you the sentiments I feel knowing that,” the skeleton paused briefly, fighting against the tremble in his voice. “They are meaningless now. I do want you to know, however: though part of me often cursed fate that I could not have you myself, I would not, in a million lifetimes, have wished this upon you nor Asgore.”

“You are right. They are meaningless,” Toriel spat coldly, picking up the soul chamber and striding away, leaving Gaster alone in the airless room. He waited until she was a fair way ahead before leaving the room behind as well.

Chuckling softly to himself, Gaster made his way to a rarely-used section of the lab, where many devices he’d put together over the years gathered dust. Some were useless now, some disassembled, but he had always kept one in particular in case of problems from other monsters. It looked unassuming enough; small enough that it could sit on a table, and wouldn’t look out of place in a lab. But when turned on, it effectively disabled monster magic within a small proximity.

After digging through dusty relics for the better part of an hour, Gaster located the device and, with it in hand, he made his way to his office and brewed himself a strong, dark cup of coffee. Then he took a long sip and watched the monitor for the security camera trained on the main entrance.

And he waited.

He would make that grinning fool of a skeleton regret his betrayal.


	2. ...Happiness?

  
  


Even though Gaster knew that Sans sometimes didn’t show up at the lab until well past noon, he still began to fear quickly that his assistant wasn’t going to return at all; but, while he waited, the fear turned into impatience, which turned to mild perturbation, which soon faded away. In the end, he fell asleep at his desk before he was even finished his first mug of bitter coffee.

He woke up on the cusp of afternoon and evening in a cold sweat, grasping for memories of a dream that offered excitement that he rarely felt. But even as he reached for recollection to hold onto, it all escaped away save for the fabricated sensation of a warm, wet mouth around the bony digits of his index and middle finger. Barely awake, the man shivered slightly and looked at his fingers for a moment before pressing them into the fresh crack in his cheek. His face felt warm.

“so,” the voice almost made Gaster leap up from his chair in shock, but he managed to contain the reaction to starting and swivelling his chair around. He was still trying to regain composure from his dream as he met the relaxed and mischievous gaze of his assistant. “do you always make so many obscene noises in your sleep, or were you just having a real special dream?”

Unable to hide his grimace, Gaster poked his fingers harder into the fracture in his bone. It didn’t too badly hurt anymore – skeleton’s bodies tended to work that way – but it was therapeutic nonetheless. “Do you always creep into your boss’ office to observe them sleep?” the scientist countered, shifting uncomfortably. He knew that diverting the attention away from the situation probably wouldn’t help, but it was too difficult to bite back the remark.

“well,” Sans chuckled, bending his elbows in a shrug before seeming to lose interest in the topic, instead gazing at Gaster’s face with eyes even brighter than usual. “that’s new, isn’t it? Nice. Very sophisticated. Hell of a place for it, too.” The skeleton gestured to the corresponding spot on his own face as he spoke.

Gaster moved his hand away from the fresh crack and ran his fingertips through the other that he’d worn for some time. It began at the brow bone above his right eye and continued down to the socket, a sharp and dark contrast on his otherwise flawless white skull. Skeletons tended to develop cracks naturally as they aged, and it was generally considered a sign of status rather than an imperfection. Some skeletons even found the markings attractive.

Judging by the size of Sans’ glowing pupils, and the way his ever-grinning teeth were slightly parted, he was among those skeletons. For a few seconds, Gaster returned his gaze, although he felt rather uncomfortable with the way the small skeleton was staring. But, inexplicably, he felt something else, too. Knowing what he was about to do to Sans, he almost felt sick with himself for letting desire creep up on him.

“Anyhow,” Gaster burst out, forcing his mouth into a straight, serious line.

“yeah, anyways,” Sans agreed. Gaster only averted his eyes for a moment, and the other skeleton had teleported across the room so that he was seated on Gaster’s desk, his hand stuffed into the pockets of the oversized blue sweater he insisted on wearing whenever he wasn’t in his labcoat.

It smelled like sweat. And ketchup.

“I really do hate that thing,” Gaster muttered, eyeing a red stain near the pocket. “Do you ever wash it?”

Sans’ grin suddenly changed to a more provocative expression and he withdrew his hands from his pockets, letting his shoulders droop back so that the jacket slid halfway down his arms. “i can always lose it for now,” he suggested, winking an eyesocket. “as long as you don’t  _ jacket  _ and throw it in the incinerator.”

Deciding not to grace the pun with a response, Gaster simply smacked his hand into his forehead lightly, turning his desk chair away from Sans.

“hey, i gotta question for you, doc,” Sans ventured, straightening his posture and shrugging his jacket back onto his shoulders. The other skeleton turned his head ever-so-slightly towards Sans, waiting for him to speak, so he reached across the desk for the only photo frame that adorned it and picked it up, bringing it closer to his face. “This skele-lady. She your wife?”

The older skeleton swivelled his chair quickly towards Sans, taking the frame from him and looking at it for a moment. “No, she is not my wife. Or my... anything. Merely a regret, an unfortunate side effect of my own... folly.” Gaster spoke in a much heavier voice than intended, and when he was done speaking, he dropped the frame into the garbage can next to his desk. “I had not realized it was still here.”

“pal, that sounds rough,” Sans mused, looking at Gaster’s face with a mixture of concern and curiosity. “so, what happened, anyways?”

Realizing that he must appear emotional to Sans, the scientist forced his expression into a scowl and straightened his spine. “I deceived myself into thinking that I am a person who could be happy with a family, as Asgore is – was. But I... Well. It wound up feeling like another experiment to me, if I am to be honest,” grimacing at his own words, he avoided the other skeleton’s gaze. “Call me what you wish. I have heard it all.”

“lonely,” Sans said quietly, practically inaudibly. Gaster tensed at the word, though, and quickly decided that he had been wrong. Nobody had called him that before. “but, hey. you have a kid on the way now, dontcha? you must be happy about that.”

The royal scientist didn’t respond for quite some time, until, at last, he turned his chair to inspect Sans. “He was born four months ago. Do you know how many times I have been home to see him since then?”

Sans shook his head.

“Irrelevant. I do not have the temperament to be a parent. Besides, my work here is more important than any other selfish desires or pursuits I may be interested in. My son – his mother will take care of him, I am sure. But I do not feel anything for her. So, I help in the only way I am readily able – money, housing, et cetra.”

Sans remained silent as he took in Gaster’s words, feeling as if his soul had sunk all the way down into his abdominal cavity. “so... does your work here make you happy, then?” he asked, leaning towards Gaster curiously, his pupils searching for any trace of emotion on his face, but his exhaustion was a mask that refused to be seen past.

“Happy,” scoffed Gaster, starting to feel awfully trapped by the conversation. Why was in the Underground was Sans so preoccupied with his emotions all of a sudden? Their relationship had never been anything but strictly professional, so why was his assistant suddenly trying to make his employer’s emotions his business?

“My “happiness” is inconsequential. Monsters everywhere need to see the sun again; they need to feel fresh air wafting on their faces. And, currently, that responsibility falls to me. Anything that I may have wanted - anything I want now...” the skeleton paused, studying Sans’ intent, pleasantly symmetrical face, before concluding, “is not a priority.”

Sans’ lights faded out of his sockets as Gaster spoke, and his grin lost its good nature, becoming rather serious instead. Uncomfortable with the entire exchange, Gaster pushed himself up from his chair and walked into the tiny adjoining kitchen – if it could really be called that, as all it sported was a microwave, miniature fridge, and sink – so that he could make himself a fresh coffee. By the time he’d measured the grounds and dumped them into a filter, Sans was sitting on the only empty counter space, smiling as if nothing had perturbed him in the first place.

“so, your priority is to break the barrier, right?” the boy pressed, gazing at the tall skeleton as he tried his best to work around Sans’ presence.

“Correct,” Gaster muttered, grabbing a mug from the shelf and looking into it as if he expected to find something there. After blowing into it to remove any dust that might’ve settled inside, he reached for the electric kettle to plug it in, but Sans had already done so, his blue aura still shimmering in his sockets. Frowning, Gaster put the mug beneath the drip stand and leaned his elbows on the counter.

“so... is that what’ll finally make you happy?”

Sighing, the scientist stared hard at the counter below his face, wishing he could melt into the coffee-stained surface. The question was equally confusing as it was frustrating. Sans had gone behind his back to get the human soul taken away from him, yet now he was asking so many questions about his well-being... had his assistant been trying to undermine him, or did he truly believe that having the soul pulled from his grasp was for the best?

“I... I do not think happiness is among my options,” the scientist said flatly after a few long moments of silence. Before Sans could answer, the electric kettle began to sputter, indicating that the water inside was boiling. Leaning back, Gaster watched closely as Sans unplugged the kettle with a snap of his fingers and then used his magic to lift it and pour boiling water through the coffee grounds.

Admittedly, it was impressive. Sans wasn’t a Boss monster, but his magic possessed the precision and usability of a much more powerful – or more experienced – monster than he was supposed to be. Gaster had been torn on the punishment he would administer to Sans, but seeing his capabilities yet again brought a new idea to mind.

“i don’t think you’re the kind of person who’ll never be happy,” Sans began carefully, closing a socket in a wink, “but on the path you’re on now? your prospects don’t look so good. and with the attitude you’ve got now... you’re not gonna have a good time.”

The scientist didn’t answer, simply picking up his mug once the dripping had slowed and blowing on the hot liquid gently. He took a deep breath, savouring the rich smell of coffee, before taking a small sip, although it was still hot enough to scald.

“I have a question for you, Sans, to repay all of yours. Why did you go to the Dreemurrs with your letter? Why betray me that way, if you are really so preoccupied with what I want – with my... Happiness?”

The lights in Sans’ eyes vanished in an instant. “welp,” he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets to hide the tremors that had started up. “i shoulda known nothing gets past you – you’re a genius, after all. but you were acting so  _ normal,  _ i really thought-”

“Sans, you are stalling. Answer me.”

The small skeleton pushed himself to the end of the counter and dropped off, headed back to Gaster’s office. Fearing that the boy was leaving and he would never get an answer, Gaster rushed after Sans, hoping to turn on the magic inhibitor before the boy could escape its range, but when he passed back into his office, Sans was sitting in his computer chair.

“do you think i’m dumb, G’?” Sans asked, very seriously. Truthfully, the scientist had his doubts, but they weren’t regarding his assistant’s intelligence, but his personality. Rather than saying that, the tall skeleton only threw his arms up in a helpless shrug.

“right, you want me to get to the damn point already, dontcha?” chuckled Sans, staring at the monitor in front of him. “well. when i signed on as your assistant, i knew all about you already. i knew about your LV. i knew all about the souls that broke in your hands. you’re kinda infamous, you know - mad scientist type. i gotta tell you, that sorta thing doesnt sit well with me. so... i guess i was trying to help you make the right choice.”

Gaster balled his skeletal hands up and shoved them against his face in a gesture of rage, closing his sockets tightly. It didn’t matter that Chara’s soul had been taken, or that Toriel was lost to him now – not really. What mattered was the sheer betrayal – the _nerve!_ - of this foolish child. Calming, Gaster brushed down the front of his shirt.

“I am sure you realize that you will be punished,” Gaster spoke on the edge of audible volume, moving across the room in two smooth strides to flip on the magic inhibitor behind Sans. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to take any notice, now more focused on Gaster.

“yeah, yeah, i’ll pack my things. just... i wish you’d see it my way. you can act like souls are  _ things  _ all you want... but there’s a better way to get out of here,” Sans didn’t glance over to see the menace on Gaster’s face, else he likely would’ve thought better of continuing to speak. “or maybe that’s just a feeling i get.”

“Better way? Like Asgore’s way? Cowering down here, waiting for more humans to fall?” Gaster snapped, smacking his hands down on his desk and almost knocking over the coffee he’d just set down in the process.

“i hadnt gotten that far yet,” Sans admitted, grinning over his shoulder. Seeing the Royal Scientist’s murderous expression, though, he felt his spine stiffen. “whoa. uh. d-doc?”

Enough. It was enough, now. Shaking with fury, Gaster grabbed Sans by the front of his shirt and lifted him effortlessly out of his seat, grabbing the humming inhibitor with his other hand and storming out of his office.

“w-what are you doing?” Sans gasped as he dangled, unable to protect himself, from Gaster’s grip. “why cant i-”

“Run away? Because I am stopping you. You misunderstood, you see, when I said you will be punished. I cannot simply  _ fire  _ you – I need an assistant. Yet, you will not cooperate with my experiments, will you? So, you must be replaced,” Gaster felt... strange. He knew that the words he spoke were his own, yet they felt strangely disembodied from him. In truth, he didn’t feel anything now aside from a sickening, hollow urge for bloodshed.

Sans was about to have a bad time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is what the eye trauma and non-con warning is for, y'all. It _can_ be skipped and the events can be pieced together less graphically in the fourth chapter.
> 
> Poor Sans.


	3. dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So anyways I'm really bad at posting on schedule so here's this awful chapter

“c’mon, doc, you don’t wanna do this,” Sans chuckled nervously as he hung from Gaster’s grip, trying to keep track of the twists and turns the scientist was making down the halls so that he could find the way out once he struggled free. “p-please, bud, do you really wanna hurt me?”

The scientist paused briefly before kicking open the door he’d stopped in front of. After glancing around the room to make sure it was the right place, he slammed Sans into the chair in the centre of the room, making sure the impact was hard enough to make his head spin. While Sans was still trying to get his bearings, Gaster tightened the leather straps on the chair’s arms around his wrists.

The tall skeleton paused briefly, taking in the sight of the boy. His eyes glimmered blue with suppressed magic and sweat of the same color was rising on his skull and brow bone, and he strained hard against the leather binding his wrists.

“c’mon, doc,” Sans repeated, grinning wider in spite of the fear in his eyes. He was searching Gaster for any trace of the person he’d thought he knew, but the other’s eyes were so cold and emotionless that he was soon to give up.

Tears welled up in Sans’ sockets and spilled over, dripping down onto his shirt collar as he tucked his neck in, trying to hide his face. Gaster’s hand paused, hand hovering over a surgical tray covered in a tarp, before pulling it off to reveal the assorted tools, shiny and ready for use.

Appearing deeply thoughtful, he traced his hands over the handles of a few tools before picking up a pair of sharp scissors. Ignoring Sans’ struggles, he neatly clipped open the front of Sans’ shirt, exposing the soul seated in his chest cavity. Normally, a monster’s soul was white and static, but the young skeleton was fighting so hard to produce magic that it was rapidly flickering between blue and gold. Briefly, Gaster marveled; it was almost powerful to overcome the magic dampener.

Pushing past the brief moment of awe, Gaster placed the scissors down and reached towards Sans’ ribs, hesitating only due to the fact that he hadn’t decided on  _ how  _ exactly to proceed. For a moment, he realized: he could crush the other monster’s soul at this moment – erase his life in an instant.

But Sans’ death wouldn’t erase the damage that he had done. How could he study the qualities of souls without one to study? But, as his hands wavered in front of Sans’ ribcage, he recalled Toriel’s fierce eyes in the sterile light of the containment room, hearing her words in the back of his head.  _ “You have gained too much LOVE to be loved.” _

The repercussions of taking his life were too great, he realized. Gaster brought his attention away from the soul to look at Sans’ sockets, watching them spill over with tiny waterfalls of blue tears while his pupils flashed rapidly from cyan to gold as he desperately tried to conjure some trace of magic to protect himself. The scientist allowed his hands to drop back to his sides. There would have to be a compromise – and he had a perfect plan.

“You understand what you have done, do you not?” the royal scientist spoke in a voice so thick with malice that it was difficult to shove through his vocal cords. “I had a potential solution in my hands. Everything I have worked for – what I have dedicated decades upon decades of my life to – could have been concluded with ease, peacefully. Did it occur to you how much everyone in this wretched hole has been set back by your actions?”

Sans stopped struggling against his restraints and sniffed sharply, trying to stop tears from escaping his nostrils as well as his sockets, though it didn’t help much. “you’ll find a way. i know it. i mean, you’re the royal scientist! The  _ Great  _ Gaster! doc, i know this isn’t the time, but… i grew up lookin’ up to you. either you’re above this, or i’m a  _ numbskull. _ ”

The scientist’s jaw dropped with disbelief at the timing of the joke while Sans bubbled with laughter despite his tears. Gaster didn’t know what to say or do – so he smiled, shaking his head wearily.

“see? i told ya i’d get a smile out of you someday. Now, why don’t we just forget all this? i get it if you’re gonna fire me, but...” Sans was still sweating nervously, but his tears were back under control, thinking the situation was back in his grasp. “...but this seems a little excessive, dontcha think?”

The scientist didn’t respond immediately aside from looking down at Sans ponderously, thinking back to the magic surging around his soul. The boy was strong and intelligent; traits that were a shame to let go. How to use them both?

“I am going to tell you a few things about souls, Sans – some things that not everyone knows. They are a complex combination of magic and biology, and cannot possibly remain stable without one or the other. Though, they do not strike a balance between the two, either. Human souls are more physical; monsters, magical.”

“that’s soul-ology 101, doc,” Sans chuckled uneasily, closing one socket. “gimme a little more credit than that, will you?”

“I was not done,” Gaster pointed out lightly, reaching around behind himself to pull the nearby chair close to Sans’ operating chair and sitting down. “When I was much younger, likely about your age, I began to study the souls of all sorts of living creatures. Humans, monsters, the creatures that crawl the earth above… Even monster souls, which we call weak, have incredible potential to grow in power – but that method of growth is by spilling blood. That double entendre – LOVE, Level of Violence – is aptly named, after all.”

“can we, uh, skip to something i don’t know? also, do i gotta be tied up for this?” the small skeleton interjected, squirming uncomfortably as Gaster bent over a little closer, the lights in his sockets affixed on the soul in his chest cavity.

“The morality of a soul – good, evil, right, wrong – runs deeper than memories. You were not born with your views, but they become ingrained into your soul as you mature. That means even a brilliant young mind such as yours, little Sans, cannot be set free from limiting morals even if I were to wipe away all your memories.”

He pulled his eyes away from Sans’ soul long enough to reach a long arm over to the cart holding his surgical tools and roll it closer. “However… if I take a sample of your soul – a sample of the part that holds your intelligence and knowledge, specifically – I can create an… improved version of you. I will need nothing more than a tiny piece of your soul, and some of your magical essence.”

“w-wait, are you talking about…  _ cloning  _ me?” Sans’ voice cracked with surprise and he seemed to relax a little, if only due to his intrigue. Then, he shook his skull back and forth, producing a rattling sound from within it. “i couldn’t list the reasons it wouldn’t work even if I had all day, so i’ll skip to the big one: you’d need a soul similar enough to mine to bring it to life, nevermind actually making it function.”

“I am aware of the requirements,” Gaster said flatly. “Think of it this way: this will be the most significant contribution to science you will ever make, as well as your last. I will prepare for the operation now.” The scientist stood from his chair and turned towards the door, catching himself before he could instinctively tell Sans to remain where he was. Poor boy didn’t exactly have a choice.

Distilling the solution to hold the piece of Sans’ soul, as well as locating the magic extractor that hadn’t been used in years only took a few minutes – the perks of being meticulously organized – but Gaster rushed nonetheless, inwardly terrified that that something was going to go horribly wrong. If Sans escaped now, he truly would be left with nothing left to work on.

He allowed himself a moment to feel disgusted with himself – he was more concerned with his research coming to a halt than the potential consequences of his work being exposed to the public. Sans’ wellbeing didn’t even cross his mind.

However… if he wasn’t doing his job, he wasn’t any use to anyone. Shaking off the clinging thoughts, the skeleton made his way back to the operation room, feeling an involuntary twinge of relief to see that Sans was exactly how he’d been left. The small skeleton looked up when Gaster came back in, balling up his fists uneasily and beginning to sweat yet again.

“h-hey, level with me D-doc, uh...” Sans stammered, producing a loud creak of bone against leather as he pulled against the chair’s straps. “How bad is this gonna hurt?”

“It will hurt less if you remain calm,” Gaster evaded, shrugging his shoulders. “The soul sample will sting a little, but I believe it will be more uncomfortable than anything – for both of us. You…  _ have  _ had your soul touched before, have you not?”

“buy a guy a drink first,” Sans mumbled, scrunching up his face. Realizing that the other was still waiting for an answer, he tucked his neck down and muttered, “i mean, not by anyone else.”

The tall skeleton parted his teeth slightly as he found himself looking at Sans’ soul again. Pure. Untouched. After a moment, Gaster lifted his hands in front of his face to look at them, images of when they had been dusty or bloody – sometimes both – flashing through his mind. He reminded himself: Sans was practically a child. Time lost meaning – age lost significance – to a soul that could persist forever. But still, Gaster felt reluctant. When he dropped his hands to look at Sans, he couldn’t help but notice the blue tint creeping across the boy’s cheekbones.

“hell, if things had gone a little different –  _ very  _ different – i’d’ve been happy if you were the first… but now,” Sans spoke jokingly at first, but now the lights in his sockets quickly vanished, along with the color in his cheekbones. “Well. That expression on your face right now… I’d do whatever it took to stop you.”

Gaster felt his mouth curl into an involuntary smirk. “Well. Big-boned and stout is not my type, I assure you,” he spoke smugly, but the expression quickly vanished from his face when Sans glowered fiercely up at him, the corners of his mouth puckering as his grin turned furious. “Though I would be lying if I said I never found you… aesthetically pleasing,” he added, curling and uncurling his fingers in anticipation.

“Just take the fuckin’ sample, pal,” Sans growled through clenched teeth, his eyes lighting up with blue rage. He tensed as Gaster’s eyes dropped to look at the soul in Sans’ chest cavity, expression becoming cold and predatory. His anger faded away into fear and he shut his sockets tightly, not wanting to see what came next.

The scientist didn’t respond immediately, instead, moved to the corner of the room and turned on the taps to the stainless steel sink, scrubbing away at his hands. Souls were sensitive to direct bacteria exposure, after all. Sans waited, eyes still firmly closed, until he heard Gaster walk back over and sit across from him. He opened one eye cautiously to see a skeletal hand hovering inches away from the lower end of his sternum, trembling.

Then, finally, Gaster made contact with clinical firmness, pulling the soul forward from Sans’ ribcage until he felt the resistance of invisible magic tendons keeping it close to its host. By then, he was holding the boy’s soul quite close to his own chest, almost cradling it.

Monitoring the hitch in Sans’ breathing, the scientist gingerly rubbed the tips of his thumbs across the tingling surface. He’d studied countless souls, and every one was different – but Sans’ was remarkable. Powerful for a regular monster’s soul, pulsating with energy and life. Sighing and swallowing the bit of extra saliva that had appeared unbidden in his mouth, Gaster turned the soul in his hands.

By the time Gaster managed to locate the node of Sans’ soul that held his learned knowledge – admittedly, he’d taken his time and made sure to be  _ rather  _ thorough – the small skeleton’s head was thrown back and he was holding his breath.

“Why, Sans, if I did not know any better, I would think you are enjoying this,” Gaster’s voice came out a lot more maliciously than he’d intended – he wasn’t sure what he was aiming for, but it surely wasn’t  _ that. _

“hurry up and get it over with,” Sans muttered, glancing briefly at the older skeleton’s face. He soon wished he hadn’t, though, because the hungry look there only made him feel worse.

“Tell me how you feel, Sans, will you not?” Gaster spoke in an unnaturally chipper voice, giving the soul one long stroke with his thumb and watching the boy tense up. “This is an experiment, after all. I need to know what my subject is feeling.”

“fuck you,” Sans growled, jerking his entire body in attempt to be free from his bindings. “you’re only enjoying this ‘cuz i’m not. Because i’m vulnerable. you’re  _ sick. _ ”

Once Sans’ words sank in, Gaster looked down at the soul in his hands. Of course the boy was reacting physically to his touch – that was how monster souls  _ worked.  _ It was only an involuntary reaction. The scientist clenched his spare hand into a fist for a moment before reaching over to the surgical tray and retrieving a scalpel.

“Close your eyes, Sans,” he muttered absently, rather surprised that the boy actually listened. Gaster supposed that the boy didn’t want to watch his own soul being cut into either. Bringing his face a little closer to the soul, Gaster shaved a tiny shard of the soul away from the rest with the deadly sharp instrument. Sans hissed loudly between his teeth at the pain, but remained still and silent otherwise.

Placing the scalpel back onto the tray, Gaster retrieved a pair of tweezers and transferred the tiny soul fragment into the sample vial. Then he covered it tightly and set it aside.

“There. That was not so bad, was it?” Gaster said soothingly, releasing the soul and letting it pull back to its original location, within the relative safety of Sans’ ribs. He didn’t wait for an answer before returning to the sink to scrub off the thin, slimy layer of discharge resulting from handling the soul the way he had.

Normally, he barely touched souls. There were other, more efficient ways – clamps that he could have used, or, if his magic had not been suppressed alongside Sans’, he could have used magical hands that were merely an unfeeling extension of his will.

“I could have done without the foreplay,” Sans growled, twisting his neck in attempt to hide his face behind the collar of his jacket.

“Well. It helped you to handle the pain, did it not? You hardly cringed,” Gaster pointed out. Flooding the pleasure center of the soul before incisions  _ did  _ tend to reduce pain, yet…

“yeah, whatever. that wasn’t your intention, bud, and we both know it,” he snarled back, holding onto his anger so that he didn’t give into tears.

Rather than denying Sans’ words, Gaster reached for the handheld magic extractor he’d brought along with the sample vial. “This may be a little more jarring,” the scientist announced, trying not to sound as grim as he felt, but he knew his apprehension still showed.

Normally, Gaster would simply extract a monster’s magical essence directly from their soul, but the direct method was almost guaranteed to end in the subject’s death – and his goal here, he reminded himself, was to end this with Sans’ soul in tact.

_ “ _ Sans. When you use your magic, where do you feel it emanates from, physically? Aside from your soul, of course,” Gaster ventured the question as nonchalantly as he could, fairly certain that he already knew the answer, but hoping that he could be wrong for once.

“My skull, I guess,” the small skeleton answered reluctantly, shrugging his shoulders. “My eyes, more specifically. Why’d’ya’ ask?” When the scientist didn’t respond, Sans rapidly connected the dots between the question, Gaster’s grave expression, and the contraption in his hand.

“Oh no. No, no, no,” Sans whined, shaking his head from side to side and squeezing shut his sockets. “You are NOT sticking that THING in my skull!”

“I will clamp your eye open if I must,” Gaster almost whispered the words, looking at his array of surgical tools. He had a clamp that was designed to hold a wound open so that debris could be removed – it hadn’t seen much use since humans and their guns – but it would undoubtedly work long enough to get the extractor in place.

“Find another way,” Sans demanded, his vertebrae crackling as he stopped shaking his head abruptly to glower at the other skeleton. “If you’re so clever, find another way.”

Rationally, Gaster knew that he could create an alternate solution given a few days. It would be a pleasant distraction – a way to pass the time and possibly yield results that could be useful for future experiments . Yes, rationally, the scientist agreed with Sans – rationally, there was a safer and kinder way to go about this.

But…

A sharp crack of cartilage emanated from within Gaster’s skull as an unnatural, wide grin stretched open his mouth. Sockets growing enormous and empty, the now nearly unrecognizable Doctor Gaster towered over Sans, bending his spine at a 90-degree angle to look him in the eye.

“I don’t want to,” the monster’s voice gurgled from deep in his throat.

And while the small skeleton’s eyes were still stretched wide with horror, Gaster shoved the extractor into his left eyesocket and flipped the device on.

The only part of Gaster still present within his own head held its breath, praying that the extractor had hit it’s mark and he would not have to reinsert it. But the remainder of his mind was filled with pitch black laughter, bouncing around his skull – and the room, too, he realized; but it was hardly audible over the screaming.

Sans thrashed wildly in the chair, scrabbling helplessly to get free; tears flooded from every orifice of his skull, cascading their way down his ribs. He felt as if his soul were being shredded into tiny pieces and ripped through his socket and he screamed, screamed, until there was no air left inside him. And then, when he realized that he couldn’t breathe against the pain and was starved of oxygen, he went limp.

Watching from somewhere outside it all, the royal scientist lost track of how long he’d left the extractor on, siphoning magic from Sans. Finally the extractor reached sufficient capacity and shut off automatically –  or perhaps shorted out due to being soaked with tears.

It was the cold feeling deep in his soul that brought Gaster back to reality and he immediately slumped back into his chair, burying his face in his hands and letting the extractor clatter to the floor. He was almost afraid to look, but the only thing left in his mind now was a simple question: Had the subject survived? Was Sans alive?

He dared to peer between his fingers to gaze into Sans’ chest cavity. At first, it was hard to be sure; the pale glow from his soul was so dim and wavering that, at first, Gaster couldn’t see it. But as he stared harder, he could see that, though it looked as if it was going to give in and break at any moment, the soul was still holding together.

Shaking so hard that he could barely coordinate the reach, Gaster used both hands to scoop the extractor off the floor to check the magic reservoir. It was at half capacity – just enough to ensure a successful duplication. But… the magic glimmering within was no longer blue nor gold. It had melted together into a neon green glow. He could still sense power coming off it in waves – it was pure magical essence, after all – but it had changed.

Gaster quickly removed the vial from the extractor, a difficult task when he couldn’t seem to hold his hands steady. He pocketed the magic sample, then picked up the soul sample and did the same with it. Finally, Gaster undid the straps around Sans’ wrists.

Pulling back the boy’s jacket sleeves, he inspected his wrist bones. They were a little bit bruised and inflamed, but the injury was superficial compared to… Gaster looked at the boy’s soul again, reaching forward and pushing the boy’s sweat and tear-drenched jacket off of him and lifting him up gingerly, holding him close and supporting his head like he was an infant.

Knowing he had to act quickly, Gaster strode out of the room, headed towards a rarely-used section of the lab: the medical bay.

It wasn’t too late to save Sans’ life, however little it may matter in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankfully it'll be awhile before we see that side of Gaster again (or will it?)


	4. Gaster's LOVE

Inexplicably, Gaster found himself feeling lost within his own lab. This was where he lived and worked, yet as he brought the limp frame of Sans through dimmed and empty corridors, he couldn’t remember the way. Just as he thought he would have to turn back and retrace his steps, he stumbled upon the dead-end hallway, marked by just one door.

The door was engraved with the words “Soul Repair Bay” - but really, it hadn’t been used for that purpose in quite some time. Monsters on the edge of surviving and turning to dust were once rushed here for care, but Sans would be the first patient it saw in months upon months.

But Gaster already knew, with a deep and biting feeling of self-hatred, that he hadn’t brought Sans here merely to save his life, but to further his own plans.

By the time the scientist managed to maneuver around his burden of bones to open the locked door, he swore he could feel life force escaping from the broken bundle in his arms. His fear and concern suddenly increasing tenfold, Gaster wasted no time in entering the room, shutting the door behind him.

Although they were far away from the magic inhibitor now, the tall skeleton could still faintly feel a residual effect; though, with the door slammed behind him, he knew that conjuring up magic would be easy enough. With his soul pounding in his ribcage, Gaster summoned a pair of phantasmal hands that floated over to the terminal in the corner, booting it up and preparing to run diagnostics.

Meanwhile, Gaster laid Sans gingerly on the bed in the center, pushing back what was left of the boy’s tattered once-white t-shirt that was now mostly soaked and blue. Yet another pair of magical hands sprang into existence over Gaster’s head, pulling down wires from an overhead contraption. Without looking upwards, the scientist took the wires and attached them carefully, though swiftly, to the boy’s soul using the suction cups at the ends.

Gradually, machines flickered to life around the two skeletons, beeping steadily and spitting out strips of parchment, graphs, lines of code – diagnostics of all kinds. At first, Gaster simply hovered over Sans, as if looking away would be what killed him, but eventually his projected hands had brought an assortment of papers produced by the machines, and he pulled his eyes away to look at them.

For a fleeting instant, the ancient skeleton recalled that there was a reason for his title. He wasn’t “Doctor” Gaster for no reason – healing had once been a central part of his job. But now he was far too well-versed in destroying to ever go back. He would not deceive himself into thinking otherwise.

Despite the fact that he had prepared himself for the worst, seeing the actual data from the soul’s readings was alarming. Gaster had not realized just  _ how  _ close he had come to killing Sans – the boy only had one HP left. Also, he had expected there would be some permanent damage, but the fact that it was already so apparent… The only thing that was unclear now was the  _ extent  _ of the damage that he had caused.

This was why a monster rarely survived a magic extraction directly from the soul: it didn’t simply siphon away their power, but the source of it. For the remainder of Sans’ life, the very force that kept him alive would be weakened.

_ But he is alive,  _ Gaster reminded himself. He sat in silence for a moment before his mind desolately added,  _ but look at what you have done to him. _

Ignoring the voice, Gaster turned his attention to the set of hands hovering over the terminal, reading the variables of Sans’ condition and typing them in. Soon, the machines around them settled down into a soft hum and a warm light enveloped the little skeleton’s wavering soul.

The scientist reached forward his hand until it was just within the warm light, and he sighed at the soothing feeling. It was artificial healing magic, fueled by the stolen essence of a monster now long dead. He briefly considered the irony: killing a monster to create a device that would outlive them, to keep healing long after they would have been gone.

Such was the way of the Underground. Sacrifice few to save the rest. If something useful or interesting was learned along the way, it was a bonus. If Gaster found himself taking enjoyment in what he did, though… Shaking his head, he stared solemnly at the broken boy hooked up to the machines. There was no pleasure to be found in this.

Gaster’s only relief would be knowing Sans wouldn’t remember any of what had happened once the scientist was done. After all, the Soul Repair Bay’s original purpose was healing, but like so many of Gaster’s works, it had a dual purpose.

After the horrors of the war, there was more than physical injury that needed to be seen to. Countless monsters had watched entire bloodlines ended overnight; seen their families turned to dust before their eyes. Parents, siblings, children… it didn’t matter. They had all suffered. Some, more than others. Some, too much to live normal lives.

So, the scientist had spent quite some time, after finishing the CORE, searching for a solution. He’d studied a soul – Asgore’s soul, to be precise, since the king had volunteered – to find where personal memories were formed, and whether or not they could be unmade.

The experiments on memories had gone better than Gaster had anticipated – or hoped. Not only could unwanted memories be erased from a chunk of a monster’s life, individual memories could be… blurred. It wasn’t possible to wipe away small amounts of time – any less than a month, he’d found – as the measurements required were too precise and the math never quite panned out. However, wiping away the last few months of many monster’s memories before they were driven underground had saved lives.

Rubbing his temples tiredly, Gaster walked over to the terminal and waved away his magical hands, readying the program that would start work on Sans’ memories. He hadn’t realized – it was nearly a year ago that Sans had started working alongside him. A year of Sans’ life would be gone – all his progress, everything he had learned, vanished.  _ Gods, what a waste,  _ he lamented silently.

The healing cycle would have to finish before Gaster could move onto the memory removal, so he picked up a chair that sat by the door and moved it over to where Sans lay. The bed had been built quite high to accommodate for Gaster’s height, so when he sat down, his head almost level with the mattress.

He didn’t think much of resting his head on the bed, if only to rest his eyes for a moment…

  
  


The feeling of something stirring close to his head awoke the royal scientist with a gasp and he sat up straight, scrambling to remember where and when he was. At first, he was back in the hospital, still waiting for the nurses to bring news about when they would be able to bring his son home. But when he recognized Sans on the bed, he realized; that had been months ago. This was now.

Sans’ eyes were opened into slits, the static grin stretched across his mouth making it look as if he was smiling directly into the sun. He was barely conscious, but the machines around him were already beginning to beep more rapidly, signaling the boy’s distress. Holding his breath, the scientist conjured up one extra hand that floated over to the terminal and powered down a few of the now unnecessary monitoring devices. The room was silent for a few moments once they had been turned off, aside from the two skeletons breathing.

“d-doc?” the small skeleton rasped, his voice still hoarse from screaming. He tried to lift his skull to look around, but gave up fairly quickly. “i… know you’re there. if you’re gonna kill me now, just… get it over with, will ya? i… can’t.”

Alarmed, Gaster stood up to check on the condition of Sans’ soul. Had the healing process stopped partway through after he’d dozed off? No – it appeared normal, if a little dim. That would likely be its permanent state. So why…?

“i… don’t have anything else, you know,” the boy on the bed choked out, staring vacantly up at the ceiling with empty sockets. “this job was my chance to  _ do  _ something instead of being… useless. lazy. did ya… know that?” 

“my parents, my whole family, the war… it all happened before i was even old enough to walk. grew up in an orphanage down here after that, with a bunch of other kids who had no-one.”

The scientist didn’t answer, but his hand involuntarily moved to cup Sans’ cheek. Initially, the boy jerked his head away from the touch, but, feeling the gentleness in the gesture, he let his head rest heavily against Gaster’s palm.

“i was dreaming,” Sans mumbled absently, his eyes still staring above him blankly. “i was lost. it was dark. cold. i was screaming for somebody to come find me, but nobody came. nobody ever comes.”

Gaster rubbed this thumb in a circular motion against the boy’s cheek, trying to ignore the sensation of his soul tying itself into knots. “I can help you, Sans. I can make you forget that dream. Your pain… the pain that I caused. All the time that you have wasted here. The memories of what I have done may find you in your subconscious, but they will only be nightmares to you.”

Weakly, Sans reached his hand up and rested it on the back of Gaster’s; tenderly. So tenderly that the scientist almost pulled his hand away. He had seen Sans violated, terrified, knocked unconscious, yet… all those combined didn’t amount to the vulnerability Gaster saw now in this moment.

“Doc… heh. Gaster?” Sans groaned, blinking a few times and turning his head to meet the other skeleton’s gaze. “I have one thing to ask of you. Something that’ll make everything you did right for me.”

Feeling dread biting sharp teeth into his soul, Gaster dared to meet the boy’s eyes. Nothing could make it right – he  _ knew _ that – so what…?

“Would you… kill me?”

Gaster felt his fingers curl involuntarily, his fingertips scraping against the bone of Sans’ cheek. He couldn’t count the things that he felt, but the worst among it all was the pain in his chest. He raised his hand to where his soul lay behind his shirt, grasping at the fabric. What in the Underground was this ungodly ache?

“No… Sans, I ca-” Gaster’s voice was thick with regret, catching his throat. “I cannot. I am so sorry. I just ca-”

“why?” Sans asked, letting go of Gaster’s hand and looking away. “i know it ain’t the guilt. guilt didn’t stop you from doing this to me. what difference does it make to you, now that you got what you wanted, whether i live or die?”

The part that concerned Gaster most was that the boy didn’t sound sad or angry – just defeated. Thoroughly, completely defeated. Not knowing what to say, the older skeleton just circled this thumb against Sans’ cheek again.

“nah, i get it. this is part of it, huh? you wanna watch me live on, knowing i’m suffering, right?” Sans started to rasp with laughter, his chest feebly rising and falling. “will that excite you? bring you more dreams that make you moan in your sleep? is this a game to you?”

“No, I-” the scientist began furiously.

“c’mon. it’ll be easy. i got no will to fight you,” Sans’ voice dipped deeper and quieter as he spoke and his eyes slipped closed.

Gaster let go of the handful of fabric he held in his hand, reaching forward and detaching the suction cups from Sans’ soul. He heard the boy gasp with mortification and his eyes flew wide open as if he was expecting it to be the last thing he ever felt, but instead he opened his sockets to see Gaster dropping his lab coat to the floor. Then, he gripped his shirt and tugged it over his head, stumbling with the effort to get the tight neck over his skull. Letting that fall to the tile as well, Gaster grasped the dangling wires and attached the suction cups to his own soul with professionally steady hands.

Sans watched, wide-eyed with shock, as Gaster conjured up a set of extra hands to wheel over the nearest monitor and typing into it. Then, he turned the monitor towards the boy on the bed, looking him in the eye as steadily as he could.

“These are the LOVE readings from your soul, Sans,” the scientist said quietly, pointing to the graph in the center of the screen, tracing a red line that split it in half. “This is where your LOVE would go up from “one” to “two.” You have not killed anyone, as I am sure you are aware.”

Sans looked from the monitor to Gaster’s face a few times, then let his eyes zero in on the soul behind Gaster’s slender ribs. It was almost solid white, unlike most monster’s semi-transparent silvery souls. Pretending not to notice Sans’ staring, Gaster switched to his readings and tapped the screen to bring the other skeleton’s attention back to it.

“These are my readings,” Gaster muttered, very quietly.

Sans looked over to the monitor. It looked mostly the same now, although the red line was much closer to the little heart on the screen that indicated his LV.

“so? you’re still LV one, aren’t you?” Sans asked, squinting at the monitor. “jeez, how many things do you gotta kill to-”

“My LV is 19,” Gaster cut the boy off, ripping the suction cups off of his soul harshly and letting them go. “After LV 20, souls are observed to lose themselves completely – the process is gradual leading up to that point, but once you cross the brink, you are gone. Forever. If I reach LV 20, I would not be able to stop. I would be a danger to everything around me.” The skeleton picked his shirt up off the floor and brushed his thumbs against the fabric. “I do not know if it will be the next thing I kill, or the one after that, or the next… but I am too close to risk it.”

Sans pushed himself into a sitting position, staring round-socketed at Gaster’s downcast eyes. The scientist looked deeply contemplative, staring at his hands. Then, he turned his attention back to Sans, expression hardening determinedly. 

“So, you see, I cannot kill you. But, if you are willing, perhaps... I can offer you something to live for?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Cool motive, still shitty~~


	5. Papyrus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy friday y'all

  
  


Sans clutched the piece of paper to his chest firmly, crinkling it occasionally with his bony digits as Gaster reattached the suction cups to the boy’s soul gingerly. His mouth was set in the same permanent grin as always, but his eyes were full of anxiety, following Gaster as he moved to work on the terminal.

“are you... are you sure you wanna do this?” the small skeleton broke the silence in an uncharacteristically shaky voice.

“No. However, I am not sure what I would do if not... this,” the scientist responded, reluctantly bringing his eyes back over to Sans. “Do you remember-” he began, then broke off, looking solemnly down at the floor.

“it’s not gonna matter what i remember once you flip that switch, eh?” Sans guessed, chuckling nervously and shifting onto his side so that he could watch the scientist work without having to crane his neck. He couldn’t tell from his lack of experience with the terminal, but it had been ready for several minutes. Gaster’s hands wavered above the keyboard.

“You can still change your mind,” the boy pointed out, shrugging an arm. “Just dump me somewhere with no memory. It’s a lot more logical, don’t ya think? You can keep your family – somethin’ to go back to when you’re done here.”

The scientist peered over the terminal at the boy, feeling that unfamiliar ache in his chest yet again. It was somewhere between regret, longing, and envy. Knowing what he was about to do, he supposed it was understandable.

“They were never my family,” Gaster said simply, reaching up to the breast pocket of his labcoat and pulling out a small Polaroid photograph that he kept in it at all times. He held it for a long moment, unable to look away, before snapping his fingers to summon a hand that carried the glossy photo over to where Sans waited.

“That is not my son. He is your brother now,” the scientist murmured, closing his sockets and digging his fingers hard into the crack above his eye. “Read me the note. I must make sure that there are not any inconsistencies or errors.”

“uhhh,” Sans grumbled, first staring at the photo. He supposed that was Gaster’s son, swaddled in an orange blanket, fresh from the nursery. When he finally managed to look away, he tucked it carefully behind his note and lifted it to the light so that he could read his own clumsy chicken scratch.

“ok, don’t judge me here,” he muttered.

“We may not exactly be on a  _ strict  _ time basis, however-” Gaster began, but cut himself off when Sans nodded, expression hardening.

“Sans: this is a note from me, Sans. You’re probably wondering where you are, and why you don’t really remember the last year. that’s alright, lemme just tell you that you don’t  _ wanna  _ remember the past year. long story short, during all the confusion and chaos of the war, you thought you lost your whole family. sounds familiar, right? well, me, good news and bad news: your mum made it out alive. but you were separated from her in all the chaos and grew up never knowing that you still had family out there. guess that happened to a lot of kids our age.”

Gaster kept an eye on Sans as he read, trying to tell himself that this was the right thing to do. It was quite a task to be at odds with himself the way he was: he didn’t  _ care  _ if this was the right thing to do, yet he was  _ making  _ himself care. It was a tiring self-contradiction that he was glad he would soon be rid of. 

When all was said and done, Gaster knew with certainty that this would help him live with himself - at least, in comparison to his other options.

“as you know, the Underground has gotten a lot more organized since we first fled down here to live in the dark. it’s been a lot easier for people to find each-other. by skeleton standards, you were just registered as an adult last year, me. and after that, you found yourself reunited with a  _ very  _ familiar skele-lady. yeah, your mum was alive that whole time. that’s the good news.” Sans hesitated, letting the paper rest against his chest for a second. “d’ya really think i’m gonna believe this?”

“Did you use your  _ secret codeword _ ?” the scientist asked impatiently, air-quoting.

“i used my secret, secret, triple-secret codeword, actually,” the boy snickered back, then shrugged his shoulders. “yeah, you’re right, i’ll  _ have  _ to believe me with that sort of system.  _ everyone _ should have secret codewords.”

There was a long silence, Sans looking at the scientist as if waiting for him to agree enthusiastically – but he never responded, so the small skeleton simply looked back to his sheet of paper, awkwardly reading onwards.

“she got pretty hurt in the war, but it didn’t stop her from moving on. she thought she lost you, too, in the war, so don’t get jealous when I tell you, sans, that she was expecting another kid. but... like i said. she got pretty hurt in the war. when it was time for your baby brother to be born… she was too weak. finding her, and then losing her so suddenly like that... you decided that you didnt  _ want  _ to remember ever knowing her. she didn’t make it through the birth.”

“but your baby brother did,” Sans read the words slowly, then moved the note aside to look at the photograph. “his name is Papyrus. you’re all he has left.”

The small skeleton brought both the note and the photograph close to his chest, looking over the terminal at Gaster. “and he’s all you have, too,” he concluded without reading from the sheet.

“And the password? It is on there as well?” Insisted Gaster.

“secret, secret, triple-secret codeword. and yeah, it’s there,” Sans corrected, laying flat on his back again and closing his eyes. “i can’t tell it to you. you’re not a time-traveller – and i won’t remember telling you. how do i know you won’t come along and abuse it, pal? you haven’t exactly been a stand-up guy so far, have ya?”

Gaster smiled over at the boy – possibly the first true, non-malicious smile that he had allowed to appear on his face in Sans’ presence for some time. “It is a shame you will not remember that scepticism when you awaken. It would have served you well.”

“tell ya what. when you break the barrier, you can come find me and tell me the first secret codeword. here, I’ll write it down for you,” the skeleton reached for the pencil and a spare sheet of paper that Gaster had brought, scribbling the phrase as neatly as he could.

Sighing, the tall skeleton conjured up a hand to bring the paper over to him, and he looked at the words for a moment before letting the sheet flutter to the floor and glowering up at Sans. “This is exceedingly immature, even for you. Enough jesting, now – if you were never going to tell me, why bother making up a fake one?”

“i wish i was kidding, honest,” Sans chortled, putting his hand on his ribcage as it shook up and down with laughter. “but look, i made those passwords up when i was still practically in diapers, and ya can’t just change those sorts of things, ‘cuz... paradoxes, and stuff.”

“And ‘stuff,’” Gaster echoed dubiously, trying to hide his relief at hearing the boy with humor in his voice yet again.

Gaster was still trying to mentally prepare for running the program, and what he would have to do afterwards, when Sans spoke up again. “there’s still one thing I wanna know, Doc, before you flip that switch… somethin’ that’s been bothering me since, uh, well,” the small skeleton paused, touching his left socket with slightly trembling skeletal fingers.

“Why bother asking if you will forget the answer?” Gaster pointed out, letting his hand rest on the keyboard; impatience was plain in his voice and his shifting pupils.

“why withhold it if i’ll forget?” the boy countered back, brow creasing as his grin became stubborn and resolute.

Sighing loudly, the scientist pressed his palms into his cheekbones. He could simply administer the anesthesia to Sans from where he stood and avoid the entire conversation, as well as ever speaking to him again. He knew that he couldn’t put this off forever.

“why are you sparing me if you still need a soul for your… “project?” why are you gonna use  _ her _ soul instead? your kid deserves to grow up with his mother, and I think you agree, dontcha?” Sans sounded more tired than anything as he spoke.

“I told you before. I do not feel anything towards her,” the skeleton replied evasively, but he quickly realized that the implications of his words had been too obvious. So, before Sans could make any remarks, he added, “you, however, have been an amusing distraction. Also, although you will forget what I have taught you, you will still be very clever. And you are only a just a boy – I believe your life is more… valuable. She has already lived longer than many.”

The silence that followed Gaster’s words was so lengthy that he wondered if Sans had dozed off; he was bound to be prone to taking unexpected naps now, due to his weak soul. But his eyes were open as he scribbled absently on a piece of paper laid flat on the mattress.

“Moreover, your soul has more power than hers does - therefore, I will receive fewer XP should something go… poorly,” the scientist continued, avoiding looking at the boy on the bed. If they made eye contact, Gaster feared that Sans would detect the strange emotions that he felt at that moment. “I have weighed the options, and this is for the best,” he concluded firmly.

Ultimately, the mother of his child would cease to exist as Gaster knew her, but her soul – though basically remade – would live on within the clone. It would be an abomination – advanced knowledge and scrambled magic with a soul belonging to a dead monster. The thing wasn’t even alive yet and Gaster pitied it.

“How’re you gonna do it, anyway? Her soul can’t persist outside her body,” Sans sounded genuinely interested, but he was still sketching on the paper.

“Well… it is difficult to explain. I am essentially going to trick the soul into dividing, as if it were reproducing, but it will become a new version of itself, memoryless - and due to the lack of magic, the other soul will become inert. Then, with your magic, a new body will grow the divided soul. The science is more complicated than that, of course, however-” Gaster paused, glancing at Sans. The boy was looking at his face intently, and when the scientist met his eyes he nodded as if thoughtful.

“Are you stalling me again?” the tall skeleton asked, the edges of his voice becoming hard and unfeeling in an instant.

Sans hesitated a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “maybe i dont wanna say ‘bye’ to you yet,” he said with a wink.

Although all the signs said that he was joking, he wasn’t so sure. Through all his childhood, he had never had anyone to care about him. The caretakers of the orphanage hadn’t exactly treated him as if he had any worth, and the other kids weren’t much better.

Then along came a tall and mysterious skeleton – the most  _ brilliant  _ mind in the underground – who didn’t look at him as if he was some poor orphan with no chance. A monster who kept all the world at a sterile and clinical distance, picking it apart, and yet looked upon Sans with true interest and, rarely, warmth.

There was none of that left now. Sans knew that he had been reduced to nothing more than an experiment. Yet, Gaster knew that it had never been so difficult to finish a job.

“hey, uh, will i ever see you again after this, or… is this really goodbye for good?” Sans wasn’t sure he wanted to know either way. On one hand, the normally menacing scientist had every reason to watch over him with care – Sans would be raising his only son, after all – yet the thought of a bony spectre watching from afar, floating beyond his memory, also haunted him.

“You will not know either way,” Gaster responded emptily. He had gone past the point of sinking guilt, aching regret, silent grief; he felt numbed now, and his voice showed it. “Farewell, Sans. I free you from what I have done.”

The boy felt the effects of anesthesia seconds after Gaster spoke, but he struggled, choking softly on air. Fighting against unconsciousness, he turned his neck to look at the Royal Scientist one last time with eyes that knew him.

_ Don’t forget,  _ he urged himself, though the world was already slipping away. The last sensation that he felt in the life that was taken away was Gaster’s cold hand, back where it had rested on his cheek once before and again he begged himself,  _ don’t forget. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isnt really what i think happened before Undertale at all, but anyways. This pretty much marks the end of Sans' main role in the fic - though he does show up later probably - he can go live in relative peace without scowly Dr. Murderface hanging over him! Hooray!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Oc's soon maybe~~


	6. Progress, Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An ambiguous number of months has passed since the last chapter.

"Entry three. Things... went to hell, so to speak, in the span of time since my previous entry. I have no desire to speak of it; I would prefer to rid myself of any recollection to begin with, truthfully. However, I must keep record. So, to summarize: The human soul that was brought to me was ripped from my grasp before I could make any new discoveries; although, my previous experience allowed me to extract the source of their kind’s power to exist after death before I lost the soul.”

“Since then, I have been collecting the strange substance; it's somewhere between magic and liquid - rather fascinating, but I digress. Because I have no fully-fledged subjects to test, I have been administering the substance to mice in their water. Though they do not turn to dust when they perish, an animal’s soul also does not persist after death the way a human’s does. This makes them interesting subjects, to say the least, though their suitability is questionable.”

“The readings remain stagnant. Perhaps I must inject the substance directly into their soul. So far, everything has been a dead-end, and I feel myself growing frustrated. Restless. Sometimes, I dream of dust on my hands and awaken with a jolt, fearing that I... That I have... _Ahem._ ”

“...The clone - referred henceforth as Subject One - is coming along nicely. Source One’s magic is powerful and robust, and Source Two’s soul will serve well, when they are complete. It will not be too much longer now before it is time for them to wake up. It will be a relief to have an assistant again. With nobody to gather ideas with, proceeding has been increasingly difficult as I continue to hit dead ends.”

The Royal Scientist ended the recording with a click of bone against plastic, tucking it away into the pocket of his labcoat. With his other hand he sipped coffee from a blue ceramic mug. It was slightly chipped around the rim, but the text reading “ _espresso your feelings_ ” in a goofy text was still visible. It had belonged to Sans. Gaster wrapped his other hand around the warm ceramic, savouring the sensation in his chilled bones. It grew rather cold so deep, deep beneath the ground that he easily forgot that he was still beneath Hotland and his main lab.

Doctor Gaster could still smell death in the air in this place. When he had first taken the hidden elevator down to his second lab – suitably called the Underlab – the corridors set deep into the earth had been powdered with dust, the ventilation system lifeless. The only air flow had been what naturally moved through the complex, narrow shafts. But after restoring power – trying not to suffocate on the stale air in the process – the corridors had grown thick with dust and the overwhelming stench of death, stirred up by the air currents.

How many monsters had perished down here? Perished, in strange and cruel ways while Gaster cursed and lamented the weakness of all their souls for shattering... how many had suffocated when he grew impatient and cut off power to the Underlab.... wasted away in the dark, unable to take a swift death due to machines that elongated their lives?

Choking on the dust of people he’d murdered in the name of their freedom, away from prying eyes, Gaster had felt... cathartic. Humbled. But not ashamed. How many lives matched up to the price of their doom?

No more, he decided. Not one more.

Over the next few weeks he captured the rodents that made their homes in tunnelled walls, tangled machinery, the revived ventilation vents, and he constructed them a home from disused hardware.

He made his way now to the room that contained his only living subjects, entering quietly and listening to them squeaking among themselves. If it weren’t for the microscopic soul monitoring devices he had leftover from previous experiments that were now equipped on the mice, he would likely never find any of them in their structure.

Reaching into their cage, Gaster retrieved the empty bowl for food and refilled it, then replaced it where it had been. Then he went about the room, changing out the multiple sources of day-old water with fresh solution. He had upped the concentration of the “human extract” 48 hours ago, but there had been no results as of yesterday.

“I really must devise a more suitable name for the substance... human extract. It sounds ridiculous,” Gaster muttered to himself as a reminder, downing the last of his morning coffee as he sat at the only terminal in the room and put his thin-framed reading glasses onto his face in preparation for the task ahead.

He hadn’t slept well, and his rest seemed to be poorer with each passing day, making it more difficult to focus on the unchanging diagnostics from the rodents. But if he wasn’t thorough – if he missed even a tiny shift in the readings – he knew full well that he could be missing the most important advancement in this research.

If only it wasn’t so tragically droll.

The scientist had been particularly keeping an eye on the oldest mouse of the dozen or so he’d captured; unsure of the lifespan of the little creatures, he could only wait for a natural death to take the old lady of a rodent so that he could perform a proper autopsy and see if the human substance had caused any physical changes.

By the time Gaster had reached the final subject’s numbers, he could barely keep his sockets open. Once he was finished here, he decided that he’d need to return to bed.

Seeing a shift in the results, though, Gaster suddenly found himself very awake indeed. Sitting upright, he readjusted his glasses and blinked a few times. “No, that must be an error...” he mumbled, expanding the information to show the information’s fluctuation over the past 24 hours.

Sometime during Gaster’s fabricated “night,” the elderly mouse’s heart rate and blood pressure had dropped significantly, as if death had finally come for the rodent – but then all the physical readings had returned to normal – but the soul measurements! Had the monitor malfunctioned? It was showing data easily tenfold in strength from the baseline readings.

Conjuring up a few extra hands to work with, Gaster opened up the lids of the cages and searched through the bedding for the strange subject. He finally found the wobbly old rodent trying to escape into a tunnel and lifted her out gingerly as if handling a tiny glass figure that would break if he even looked at it wrong.

After checking her monitor – it hadn’t been dislodged, as far as he could tell, but it was difficult to be certain with something so small – he reset the microscopic machine remotely and double, triple-checked. It wasn’t simply the energy readings – the soul itself had altered, Gaster realized. It hadn’t merely grown in power – it had _mutated!_

Feeling genuinely hopeful for the first time in months, Gaster detached one of the cages to quarantine the anomaly, using extra stuffing from an old patient’s pillow so that the old lady would be comfortable without her family’s warmth.

Now, he was faced with a choice: to increase the dosage, or to taper it off and watch for a decline.

 _I really do not want to skewer this data..._ the scientist thought, tapping a finger against his skull and letting the sound echo out of his agape jaw as he closed his eyes. _Perhaps I will simply keep the dosage the same, so that I do not force more results... however... Results are what I require._

Sighing crossly, Gaster struck his skull a little harder with his fingertip, until it throbbed a little. Then, he let his arm fall back to his side, taking his glasses off and storing them safely in his labcoat’s breast pocket.

The scientist sorely craved somebody to bounce ideas off of, but, knowing he had nobody, denied the desire. He left the Underlab behind for the day. Half a mug of coffee strong enough to _wake the dead –_ ha, Sans would have appreciated that – and an unwilling hour-long nap later, the scientist awoke no less frustrated than before.

He lowered his standards. Though he did not think of most of the monsters in the Underground as “friends,” there was a ghost that lived in Waterfall who would at least listen to Gaster’s ramblings, even if they didn’t have any useful suggestions for him, and talking it out was potentially the most help he could receive. It wasn’t a long trip, particularly if he had the good fortune of catching the Riverperson’s boat.

The “day” was already well underway; he had no time to debate himself on the matter. Casting aside doubts, Gaster smoothed his sleep-ruffled clothes and headed for the door. When he stepped outside into the blinding light of magma, he squinted hard against the harsh brightness and glanced off towards the direction of the CORE. He could hear it, faraway, but there was a cavern wall separating Gaster from his creation.

Turning his back to the faraway sound of whirring machinery and the stifling brimstone scented wind, Gaster walked the short distance from his lab to where the river’s tunnel opened up enough for a boat to stop.

No Riverperson. Groaning, Gaster turned and headed back up the incline. “Very well, it will be the scenic route, then,” he muttered aloud, setting off for Waterfall. It wasn’t long before he entered the comparatively cool and dark cave and had to hug his labcoat around him to ward off the chill. The scientist stopped briefly to read the enormous electronic marquee reading “Welcome to Hotland!”, shaking his head at the eyesore. It had been Asgore’s idea.

The skeleton moved on; through the tunnel dug through the enormous lone stalagmite, over the bridge where darkness fell away beneath him. When he reached the first of the Echo Flowers, he rushed past them, trying not to hear their prayers for Asriel, their curses at humans, their wishes for the sun, their encouragement for Asgore’s “war.”

Gaster stopped his brisk pace only when he reached the Echo Field; a place where the luminescent blooms grew in such dense concentrations that they parroted back senseless gibberish, endlessly. He wondered: if he were to shout at the top of his lungs here, would the entire Underground hear the hundreds of flowers echo back? Would the sound of muffled screaming reach the surface? The thought was both amusing and terrifying. He moved on.

When Gaster finally reached the Blook family’s snail farm – it was a strange occupation, he’d admit – he found himself suddenly unsure. Hovering hesitantly near the twin houses, he reminded himself. This ghost – well. They weren’t exactly friends.

Ghosts were a fascinating species of monster: born incorporeal and unable to die at the hands of violence the way regular monsters did, though they still aged and perished naturally. However, this came with a drawback – they couldn’t interact with the physical realm without use of magic. So, many of them would seek out an object to live within and control, even at the risk of ending up trapped, partially corporeal, with only a fleeting grasp on themselves for the rest of their natural lives.

It sounded like a nightmare.

Though, if they ever fully merged with an object, they could be harmed like any other monster. Personally, Gaster failed to see how the benefits outweighed the consequences on the matter, but he would never say anything like that in the presence of a ghost. They tended to have very strong opinions on the matter.

There wasn’t a way to be both kind and truthful when it came to his relationship with this particular ghost. No, they were not friends – to the surprise of no-one, the ghost had been an experiment. A volunteer, so that Gaster could study ghost souls and attempt to understand why they were able to exist in a state of flux – not quite physical, yet still somehow alive. In return, the scientist had promised that he would help make the ghost fully corporeal. Problematically, it had become something of a game for Gaster - one that didn’t even end with him learning all that much.

Growling at himself quietly, the scientist reached forward and pounded on the arched door of the grey house firmly. All was silent for a few moments, then the door creaked open slightly, revealing one glowing black-ringed eye suspended by a vaguely shimmering white nothingness.

“...Hello,” Gaster greeted the unfamiliar creature with a frown before he tipped his head to the side. “Is, erm… the other Blook home?”

The little ghost hesitated for a moment, floating weightlessly in the doorway, staring up at Gaster. “oh.... you mean Shade, right?....” the phantasmal monster bobbed back and forth as if shaking their entire body. “i’m not sure, but.... i think they went to the ruins to be alone...... oh... i probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that..... oh.....”

This little phantom couldn’t be called anything aside from a child. They barely came up to Gaster’s knee in height. Briefly, the skeleton considered kneeling down to speak with them on even ground – particularly because they seemed so nervous – but instead, they levitated higher, hovering around chest-level now.

“Are your parents home, little one?” the skeleton asked carefully, leaning forward to peer into the house. He could hear a jazz record playing inside, but the front room appeared empty, and no voices came from within.

“no...... my parents are gone,” the spectre moaned back, and Gaster silently berated himself. Countless children were drifting around with no family to speak of nowadays, although ghosts had not suffered the war quite as grievously as other monsters. Some had even managed to stay behind on the surface.

“i just have my cousins..... and Shade.... but they’re not home right now..... i’m sorry.... i probably can’t help you either,” they went on, not seeming to notice that Gaster was only half-listening at this point.

“Shade... that is what they are calling themselves now, hm? Well, it is apt. You said that they would likely be in the Ruins, yes? I thank you, little one. Erm,” the scientist paused awkwardly, looking at the ghost’s large, watchful eyes. “What is your name?”

“Napstablook...” they answered, shrinking down a little. “hey..... if you see Shade, tell them i said hi.... i guess...”

“Of course, Napstablook. Will you be alri-” Gaster cut himself off, frowning at what he was about to ask. He wasn’t going to stay and babysit a kid ghost if they wanted someone to watch after them, anyways. “Be safe, will you not?” he said instead, forcing a smile.

Although he was a little bit reluctant to leave the child on their own, he walked away regardless – they were probably used to their solitude. Hearing the door clunk shut behind him, Gaster backtracked the way he’d come, frowning.

The Ruins... they were a long way away; across the remaining half of the Underground. That was Gaster’s first thought, but another caught up with him rather quickly. Toriel was in the Ruins. It wasn’t possible to even enter without passing through the house she undoubtedly lived in. Cursing quietly, the scientist lamented his poor luck.

Perhaps it would be better to admit defeat and return to his lab. However, even as he thought this, Gaster was struck by an even greater urge to visit the Ruins. Undoubtedly, Toriel still hadn’t forgiven him for what he had done, but perhaps they could at least converse civilly, even if he couldn’t discuss what he had been doing for the past few months.

Mentally crossing his fingers, Gaster took a detour to where the Riverperson docked in Waterfall; if they weren’t there, either, the scientist told himself that he would call it day. But they were just pulling up to the riverbank to let off a pair of Royal Guards as Gaster strolled to the riverside. The guards were probably on their way back from their morning watch in the Snowdin area, he realized.

When they both saluted him as they passed, he frowned down at his labcoat. Wearing it out and about was about the equivalent of constructing a flashing sign to follow him around that read, “W.D Gaster, Royal Scientist.” Awkwardly, Gaster gave the two guards a dismissing nod, making a mental note to leave the ratty old lab coat home next time he left the lab.

When he climbed aboard the Riverperson’s boat, the circular shadow beneath their hood moved to focus on Gaster, and despite having no visible face, their recognition was palpable. His grimace deepened.

“Snowdin, please,” the scientist spoke curtly before the strange monster could make any attempts at conversation. They nodded once and the boat moved forward, driven by invisible magic.

“Tra la la,” the Riverperson broke the silence melodically, causing Gaster to startle. He had been facing away from the head of the boat, hugging the post at the tail-end and resting his chin on it, but he turned around now, expectant.

“Is the good Doctor off to visit his family?” a giggling voice asked from somewhere within the cloak.

The scientist didn’t answer immediately; he found himself strangely wrapped in memories. They were like wet paper, clinging to him: pictures of a thousand monsters exposed on the crest of a mountain beneath twilight, cornered by humans. Those that hadn’t scattered or disintegrated had been driven here, shelterless, defenceless.

He recalled standing in front of Toriel, by Asgore’s side, feeling her paw gripping onto the back of his shirt. As if she could hold him back against the horde of humans that threatened them. Asgore was calling for retreat. And so, they’d fled into the mountain, deep and far, running for their lives. Toriel never let go of him, as if she was afraid that any moment he’d turn back, flinging attacks as he raced forth to his death.

Gaster had seen the Riverperson for the first time when they reached the ruins. They had carried their boat all the way up the mountain, all the way through the Underground. What an odd creature.

“I have no family,” Gaster muttered absentmindedly, unsure of how much time had passed since the question had been asked. He no longer cared.

“Tra la la. Beware the man who speaks in hands,” the Riverperson sang back after only a moment’s pause, as if it were actually an appropriate response to the conversation. Shaking his head, the Royal Scientist turned around again, placing his chin back atop the wooden post. He wasn’t in any mood for their riddles today – or any day, for that matter.

He watched the dark water swirl behind the boat, wondering how deep it ran. Even the few amphibious monsters that had made it underground steered clear of the dark waters of the river.

When the brightness of light reflecting off snow began to filter into the dark water-lined tunnel, the skeleton sighed in relief. He didn’t understand how the Riverperson spent all their time in such darkness with nothing but the sound of flowing water; Gaster surely would have gone insane. Perhaps it had already driven the other monster mad; it would certainly explain a thing or two.

Clambering back onto solid land as quickly as he could, Gaster turned around to thank the Riverperson formally, trying not to appear as ruffled as he felt.

“Tra la la. Off you go,” interrupted the strange boatkeeper. It was impossible to tell, but Gaster thought that they might be smiling. Quickly deciding he didn’t want to know either way, Gaster nodded and turned on his heel, crunching off through the heavy, wet snow.

It had likely been falling all “night,” and now the warmer “daytime” temperatures was turning the precipitation into a malleable slush; perfect for playing in. Skirting groups of children with his head down, Gaster rushed through Snowdin. If only he could will himself to be invisible; he could feel eyes on him from all around.

Reaching the heart of Snowdin, Gaster froze on the spot. If he turned right, he would pass by the home that had once been his. He could see Sans, and the boy would be none the wiser. He could see his son.

His legs felt so rigid that he wasn’t sure he could move. All the self-hatred that grew in him, endless weeds tangling in his ribcage, rooted him to the ground and a voice in his head reminded him:

_*you can never go home._

Gaster turned left.


	7. Shade

Once he left Snowdin, Gaster only saw a handful of monsters; Dogamy and Dogressa greeted him by name - undoubtedly recognizing him by the stench of chemicals burned into his labcoat - and he nodded politely in response, grimacing at the way they nuzzled one-another affectionately once he had passed them. He also walked by a young Snowdrake couple who lay together in the snow, staring up at the frozen cave ceiling. They were too involved in their conversation to see the skeleton, and he was glad to sneak by unnoticed.

Before long, the strange skeletal trees that grew underground loomed all around, stretching impassably to the far cavern wall. No matter how many times Gaster walked this long, straight path to the Ruins, it still felt inescapably ominous. Haunting, even. A branch snapped from somewhere within the acres of leafless trees, and the scientist turned to face the sound defiantly, silently daring the source of the sound to reveal itself.

After a few seconds, Gaster scoffed as if to say, ‘that is what I thought,’ then continued down the path, flattening moist snow beneath his feet with a satisfying crunching sound. Yet the feeling of being watched persisted long after he’d moved on, following him down the arrow-straight pathway.

Even from meters away, Gaster could tell that something wasn’t right with the Ruins’ entrance. There had always been a door there, but it hadn’t been closed in many years. As he advanced closer, the unmistakable shape of the Delta Rune became clear. By the time he’d reached the door, Gaster already knew.

Gingerly, the scientist placed his hand over the circle of the Delta Rune, soaking up the feeling of ancient and powerful magic all too familiar to him. Toriel’s. So, she had sealed the door... and only those who shared her blood could undo it – no such monster lived, however. Nobody could open the door from this side except for the fallen queen herself.

Having come all this way only to be defeated, the skeleton thunked his skull heavily against the sturdy wooden door, feeling the magic buzz around in his head. After a few seconds, he repeated the motion a little harder, although not nearly as forcefully as he would’ve liked to. He didn’t need yet another crack in his skull.

“Who is there?” a voice, painfully familiar, came from the other side of the door, after Gaster had lost track of the minutes he’d spent letting his forehead collide with the wood surface.

He froze, not knowing what to do or say. Perhaps he could slip away quietly, or... smiling wearily, the scientist touched his hand to the door.

“Goat,” he said, clearly enough for his voice to carry through the wood.

There was a reasonably long silence following Gaster’s beginning of a joke, and he realized that Toriel wasn’t certain yet that it was him. “Goat... who?” she replied at last, tentatively.

“Would you “Goat who” Grillby’s with me?” the scientist’s words were very quiet now, barely making it past his throat, but with his mouth practically pressed to the door as he let his forehead rest on it, the monster that stood on the other side had no trouble hearing him.

He waited for several long moments, knowing that Toriel knew exactly who waited on the other side of the door now. Even after Toriel had grown close to Asgore, although before they were married, he had used that pathetic joke a few times to invite her to dinner. It tasted sour on his tongue now.

“Why are you here? I am not giving Chara back to you so that you can finish killing them,” Toriel’s voice was colder than the air around Gaster and twice as stinging. When Gaster didn’t answer, she added, “and I certainly do not wish to speak with you after all that you have done.”

He wasn’t about to try to make excuses for himself, but before he could gather his words, he was interrupted. “Who are you talking to, Tori?” another voice, younger and definitely female, came from behind the door. It sounded so familiar, bringing a pain with it that Gaster could not recall the cause of.

He grasped for any memory to help him identify to the other voice, but any recollection fell away uselessly like snowflakes shifting between his fingers.

“Go upstairs,” Toriel snarled; Gaster could hear her teeth click together before she spoke, as if she was baring them at the other.

“Why are you getting so upset? Is it Asgore again?”

The skeleton tensed involuntarily, wondering how many times the king had made himself an unwanted visitor outside this door. Then, he lifted his voice higher so that the other girl could hear him speak as well.

“Your voice is familiar to me, but I cannot place it. Might I ask who you are hiding back there, my queen?” Gaster knew that the way he spoke, so formally and deeply, was nearly as distinctive as his appearance – if the girl behind the door knew him as well, she would soon realize it.

“Wait.... is that Gaster? Why is he here? Is he here for me?” Was it excitement or anxiety that Gaster detected in her voice? Perhaps both.

“Go upstairs!” Toriel repeated, now shouting with uncharacteristic anger. The scientist knew very well that she only behaved that way when she had somebody to defend. So who...?

Hearing the sound of retreating footsteps, he sighed frustratedly. “Was that really necessary?” he asked, turning his back to the door and leaning his tailbone against it.

“Why are you here? Go away!” the queen seethed.

“How many times has Asgore visited you?” Gaster bounced back, his voice casual.

“Leave!”

Gaster smirked at the rage in her voice, closing his eyes so that he could imagine her face more clearly. He’d memorized it so well, down to the last detail of the way her eyes flamed when she was angry. He wondered: if he told her that she was beautiful, even when she was angry, would it placate her or infuriate her further? Undoubtedly the latter. Deciding that he was done teasing, he skipped to his true intention.

“I did not come here for you. I had hoped to slip through unnoticed in order to visit a ghost who calls themselves “Shade,” but you have locked me out. Do you know if they are there now?” the skeleton spoke in an emotionless voice, knowing that Toriel had trouble reading his intentions when he appeared indifferent.

“You have met Shade?” Toriel sounded both surprised and wary before pausing briefly. “They are indeed here. They come and go freely. What do you want with them?” her voice became plainly suspicious as she asked, and Gaster let a deep chuckle escape him.

“Oh, Toriel. Even I cannot kill a ghost. You need not worry for them, I assure you. I merely wish to speak with them,” though his voice told the truth, sincerely, he could still sense her reluctance, so he continued. “Come, now – how do you think that Shade ended up the way they are? Does it not carry the reek of something I would do? They know me... quite well.”

“Very well. If you will leave this place, and promise me you will never return... I will send them out to see you,” Toriel said at last, then took a deep breath, adding, “and if you speak to Asgore, please, tell him to stay away from this place. He is only hurting himself by coming here.”

“I cannot promise you that I will never return, Toriel. I do not make promises that I plan not to keep,” the skeleton realized only after he’d spoken how snake-like he sounded, and he sighed regretfully. “But I will not return here for you. I may return searching for Shade in the future, however.”

Complete silence came from behind the door and Gaster began to fret that Toriel had left and would not heed his request, but finally, she replied, “very well. I will go find them now, but do not expect me to answer your incessant knocking next time.”

Gaster remained silent, listening to her furry pawsteps recede down the hall before letting his knees weaken beneath him until he’d slid down into a sitting position with his spine pressed against the door. Most would be reluctant to sit in the snow, but Gaster had the benefit of being relatively unfeeling. He wasn’t certain how long it would take Toriel to find Shade, so he made himself as comfortable as he could while he waited.

Finding himself with nothing else to think about, Gaster suddenly reflected on the queen’s earlier words regarding Asgore - “He is only hurting himself by coming here.” Had she truly shed her emotions for him so swiftly? Or had they simply been fabricated in the first place, to be so easily discarded? Fascinating. He stored away the information for a closer inspection at a later time.

After a few long minutes of waiting, the scientist pulled his lab coat tightly shut around him to keep in what little warmth he had left, tipping his head back to stare up at the cave ceiling as little flakes of ice began drifting downwards, settling noiselessly on the world below. The sight was one of the most beautiful that the Underground had to offer, but Gaster had seen real snow. This was only a travesty, a sad little echo of what waited once monsters were freed.

One way or another.

 

“What the hell do you want with me now?”

The voice caused Gaster to snap out of his daze and he looked over to the other end of the door where it had emanated from. They must have phased through the door while the scientist was distracted, he realized.

If somebody didn’t know what they were looking at, they probably wouldn’t recognize Shade as a living creature at first. They was only vaguely ghost-shaped – oblong, with a tapering, uneven bottom – and had two, sinister glowing eyes, but that was where the similarities ended.

They were difficult to comprehend. Aside from their gaping, jagged mouth that glowed from within thanks to their soul, and their eerily reflective eyes, Shade simply appeared as if a gap in reality had opened up in a rough ghost shape, absorbing all light. Literally solid, sentient shadow. A strange, beautiful masterpiece. It had taken a lot of power and even more tricks to give Shade this form.

And judging by their monstrous, glowing scowl, they still were nowhere near happy.

“Well? You gonna keep staring, or are you gonna tell me what you fuckin’ want so I can go back to my peace and quiet and try to forget you exist?” Shade growled through their shadowy teeth, their eyes dimming as they took in Gaster with what could only be described as loathing.

Although taken aback by the aggression, Gaster knew that he needed to remain composed. “Now, is that any way to greet the man who put so much hard work into makng you fully corporeal?” he asked coolly, using both hands to push off the door so that he could stand; but in the end, it happened rather slowly, with the creak old bones stiff from the cold.

“ _ Look _ at me!” Shade responded. As they spoke, an appendage of solid shadow emerged from their body in order to direct a sweeping motion towards themselves before vanishing into their... midsection? “Everybody treats me like I’m a freakin’ abomination! Hell, my own  _ family  _ doesn’t look at me the same... thanks to you.”

Gaster felt a chill run down his spine when Shade met his gaze after these words. It was like trying to stare all his past mistakes in the eye. But he had to remain stoic.

“Is that why you leave little Napstablook all alone at home while you sulk in the Ruins?” the scientist jibed.

“You’d better stay the hell away from my family, you bony freak,” the monster’s jagged mouth opened wider and the dark spurs that represented teeth grew even sharper. “If you lay even one  _ finger  _ on Napsta, I’ll-” the threat went unfinished when Gaster’s face darkened, his pupils vanishing. Shade floated further off the ground, their edges wavering before they stretched out slightly, as if putting on an intimidation display.

“You seem to be forgetting that you  _ asked  _ for everything that I did to you,” Gaster chuckled, putting his hands into the pockets of his labcoat and circling around Shade, his sockets empty and predatory. “If you wish it, I can  _ rip  _ your soul from your vessel and do it all over again. . . if you are not satisfied with what I have already done for you.”

“I’d like to see you try – out here, with none of your fancy machines or tricks,” Shade’s eyes began to glow brighter with magic, and their mouth opened a little wider, shedding light across the snow. Gaster felt his body grow rigid. Was the ghost truly preparing an attack?

Acid tears sprayed from their eyes suddenly, flying at Gaster swiftly. Inhaling sharply, the scientist leaped out of the way, skidding in the snow and barely managing to keep his footing. Gaster had only just recovered and Shade was already preparing another attack; he knew that he had to think quickly, but had no time to brace himself for the projection of a mouth flying at him, teeth gnashing.

There was nothing but the heat of battle flaring up in his soul as the attack nicked his forearm, slicing through fabric and glancing off bone. Yet... he knew in the logical part of his mind that if he fought back with even a fraction of his strength, the malice lurking in him could destroy Shade in one blow, even without his intention.

He faltered, and it was the only opening that Shade needed to begin weeping again. Gaster heard the tears sizzle in the snow where he had been only moments earlier as he dodged aside yet again.

“It is okay,” the scientist gasped, holding both hands up in front of himself. “I understand that you are angry with me, but-”

“Angry! Angry doesn’t  _ begin  _ to cover it!” Shade shouted, their amorphous dark body sprouting two ‘arms’ that swung at the scientist mercilessly, scattering darkness in their wake. The blows were easily deflected, however, by a pair of magical hands conjured up. Snarling, they sent out another mouth that tried to sink its teeth into their target. One magical hand, larger than any other Gaster had used before, appeared to hold the magical mouth’s teeth together so that it could do no harm, and both the projections vanished away a moment later.

The two monsters broke apart, panting.

“I understand that I have hurt you-” Gaster tried again between breaths.

“ _ Don’t. _ Don’t act like you care!” the ghost interrupted, hurtling themselves forward and phasing through the scientist harmlessly. A classic ghost battle technique - moving through an enemy to attack from behind - too basic to work on Gaster. Almost instinctively, he dropped to a crouch, just in time for tears to catapult over his head.

“Why won’t you fight back? Kill me, like you’ve killed everyone else who got in your way!” Shade roared, almost rabid, swinging an arm down like a hammer at Gaster’s skull only to be blocked. “Am I not worth the effort?” their voice cracked due to its sheer volume and they let their mouth open wide as they gathered more magic for yet another assault.

The scientist rose to his feet slowly, holding their gaze steadily. “I never intended to hurt you like this,” he almost whispered the words, but Shade stopped in their tracks when he spoke. “I... I let myself get out of control. I always let everything escape my control; fall to malice, darkness. I could blame it on my Level of Violence, but that would change nothing.”

“So... I understand that you hate me. I understand that you want to kill me. But... I cannot harm you more than I already have. I will not.”

The ghost hovered weightlessly, edges undulating like a flag in the wind, before they dropped down into the snow like a rock. Their anger lapsed as quickly as it had come and tears of the emotional variety started flowing down from their eyes as they hunched over, trying to hide their face. Instinctively, Gaster moved to kneel down next to the stooping shadow, placing a hand atop their... ‘head’?

It felt surprisingly solid. Shade sucked in a shocked breath, then huffed a few times, astonished. They couldn’t remember ever being touched by anyone.

“Tell me honestly, Shade. If I spare you... is it mercy? Or worse than death?” Gaster wondered aloud, unsure if there was an answer to his question. “I suppose, what I wish to know is: Do you...  _ want  _ to die?” He almost added, ‘too.’ For the briefest moment, when he blinked, he saw Sans’ hopeless eyes all too clearly.

“No... I just want to be happy. I just want Napstablook to grow up happy. I... just...” the phantom’s voice died in their throat and they slumped forward against Gaster’s shoulder, shrinking down even further until the scientist easily could have cradled them. “Monsters weren’t made to live in a hole in the ground,” they managed to finish.

Winded from the one-sided fight and poorly stanced, the skeleton nearly fell back into the snow on his rear when Shade unexpectedly pressed against him. Part of him was frightened by this show of emotion, knowing that he could not reciprocate, but he gingerly placed a hand on their back anyways.

“That is why I came here today, Shade,” Gaster murmured, rising to his feet while still holding the spectre in the one-armed embrace. “I may be onto a solution to our soul problem – a solution that could not only break the Barrier, but give us all a fighting chance should the humans try to attack us when we leave.”

Shade pulled back, their amorphous body melting around Gaster’s arm before forming their usual shape again. They looked up at the scientist, their twisted mouth contorting into a grin. “Really? Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I thought you were just here to piss me off!”

Gaster held up one hand, index finger pointing towards the ceiling, before he balled it into a loose first. Finding himself unable to keep a straight face, he smirked at Shade. “You scarcely gave me an opportunity before trying to kill me,” he pointed out, fixating on the gap of light representing Shade’s mouth. 

They  _ were  _ strange to look at, but when grinning the way they were, with bright and shimmering eyes, they were almost... cute?

“Well... yeah. I don’t really need an excuse for that,” Shade replied flatly, two little bulges of darkness growing then shrinking just beneath their head. It was their best attempt at a shrug.

“That is true,” agreed Gaster with an undisguised note of amusement in his voice. “However, if you are done trying to murder me, I would be glad to continue this discussion over a burger, or perhaps some fries. Grillby would not appreciate it if we got into a row in his restaurant, but I  _ am  _ peckish.”

“What, like a  _ date _ ?” Shade’s voice was blatantly sarcastic, but somehow, the scientist didn’t seem to realize it.

“Shadowy and blob-shaped is not my type,” he muttered back, following the ghost as they started floating down the path towards Snowdin at a casual pace.

“Hey, don’t you have a lady in Snowdin, anyways?” Shade wondered, innocently enough. Gaster groaned inwardly; yet, oddly enough, he knew that he could be honest with Shade. They had been the victim of his malevolence once before and they knew very well what he was capable of – he doubted anything that he could say currently would  _ really  _ surprise the ghost.

“Er...” Gaster groaned, glancing sidelong at his companion. He was about to test his theory. “I may have... more or less... erm... Sacrificed her soul? For my work?”

Shade stopped moving forward, rotating to face Gaster, gauging his face for a few moments as if trying to see if he was joking. “Wow. You’re literally the worst,” their voice was exaggeratedly monotone, and it occurred to the skeleton that they didn’t care that much about the life of a dead stranger. “Totally classic Gaster, though. Did she, like, volunteer, or did you make her sign over her soul as like a gesture of commitment to the relationship?”

Their blatant disregard for her life should have angered Gaster – he knew that – but he couldn’t summon any resentment. “No, I may have sort of... uh... taken her to my Lab while she was unconscious.”

“Incredible. You might be the most awful person _ ever,”_ they said tonelessly, looking over at Gaster with a bemused expression, “which _ really  _ makes me wonder why you didn’t kill me. Are you sure you don’t  _ like  _ me, and you didn’t just ask me out? Are we dating now?”

Exasperated, Gaster stopped walking and leered at Shade. They gazed back with glowing eyes that blinked rapidly, as if batting eyelashes that they didn’t actually have.

“Did I not just say you are not my type?” the scientist snapped, still appearing immune to the magic of sarcasm. In truth, he was merely enjoying playing along.

“Yeah, yeah, dude, I’m  _ kidding, _ ” Shade snorted, closing their eyes for a second as they giggled. “Well, do you have a type? Like, one that you wouldn’t immediately murder.”

“I do not think that you are taking me very seriously,” the scientist commented, feigning a troubled expression.

“Man, whatever,” they chuckled, shaking their face back and forth on their shadowy head and starting off again.

“Short and stout, I suppose,” Gaster said after they’d been walking for awhile.

“Well, that’s alright. I’ll settle for just being your friend,  _ I guess, _ ” Shade moaned dramatically, firing a jagged grin in Gaster’s direction.

“Friend?” the skeleton echoed, unable to help reading into the shift in Shade’s behaviour. Less indifferent and jesting, and more sincere.

“I mean, we can go back to being mortal enemies that wanna kill each other if you  _ want, _ ” they joked, winking a glowing eye, “but like you said, Grillby would kick us out if we started fighting, and I am  _ starving.” _

The scientist relished the carefree change in conversation, but the reverie was lost to him an instant later when Shade piped up again.

“As long as you’re trying to set everybody in this sun-forsaken hole free, I’d rather call you my friend, anyways.”

Though Gaster rather liked the sound of that – Shade, his  _ friend  _ \- he felt something lurking deep in his soul, waiting. Something wicked and dark; something that was biding its time.

Betrayal.

“I’d like that, too,” Gaster replied, smiling emptily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shade has two modes ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ and (ง'̀-'́)ง and they're glad you're here


	8. New Friends, Old Flames

Despite all of the misgivings that Gaster could have clung to, he found himself relatively content with Shade’s company. They were mostly quiet for the remainder of the walk, aside from an unexpected exclamation of “look at that dog!” when they passed by Doggo’s sentry station.

Truthfully, Gaster was impartial to the dog monsters that lived in Snowdin, but they were passable guards, he supposed. He waved at Doggo, just to be friendly, and the odd pair moved on past inactive puzzles until they reached Snowdin.

If anything, the frigid town was even more alive than it had been when Gaster had left it, and he felt his earlier ease vanish as he spotted all the furry monsters milling to and fro, playing and socializing.

Shade shrank closer to Gaster, brushing against his arm. Looking at the nervous shadow, he forced himself forward, bee-lining towards Grillby’s restaurant and pulling open the door. He held it open for Shade, but they had already phased through the wall next to the door. Frowning, the skeleton followed through the doorway.

By the time he’d walked in and given his eyes time to adjust after the brightness of snow, every monster in the room had their eyes on him. There was a time when most of them would have greeted him by name, but that was before he’d disappeared for so long. He felt Shade gingerly touch his hand again and he urged himself into motion, moving to his old spot at the far right of the bar and sitting down heavily.

Shade placed themselves down on the chair beside the scientist, looking around with huge eyes. It occurred to Gaster that he wasn’t even certain if Shade was old enough to be considered an “adult” ghost, and they had probably never even been inside a restaurant that served alcohol.

The scientist was so focused on his ghostly friend that he somehow managed to miss seeing the owner of the bar approach, and turned only when he saw a bright flicker of fire out of the corner of his eye. By that time, the fiery monster was leaning his elbows on the counter in front of him.

A small, dark red gap in the shape of a smirk opened up on the lower part of Grillby’s face as Gaster met his eyes; then, any sign that he had a mouth on his glowing face vanished and he pushed his glasses up on his face, standing up straight again.

‘ _ Long time no see,’ _ Gaster signed to the flame monster, allowing his expression to appear somewhat fond. He had known Grillby for quite some time, but since he didn’t speak, Gaster knew very little about the man. One thing that he was sure of, however, was that he liked Grillby.

The monster, for reasons unknown to Gaster, only communicated through use of sign language – a method rather familiar to Gaster since he had spent much of his early life struggling to verbalize anything. The scientist wasn’t certain if Grillby was mute, or deaf, or both – maybe it was part of his anatomy, seeing as he was literally made of fire. Gaster had never felt compelled to ask.

Grillby’s featureless face took Gaster in for a moment, then he turned his head slightly to inspect Shade, seeming vaguely sceptical. Luckily, they were too preoccupied with their surroundings to notice.

‘ _ Who’s your... friend?’  _ the flame monster questioned, hesitating for a moment before reaching across the counter and poking his index finger through a hole burned into Gaster’s lab coat. After a moment, the bartender took a step back and crossed his arms, somehow managing to appear strict and accusatory despite his blank face.

The skeleton frowned down at his tattered sleeves. Somehow, he’d managed to forget that although he didn’t  _ feel  _ like he’d just been in a fight, his half-destroyed lab coat very much showed it. Acid tears had melted tiny holes all over the coat, and there was a huge rip in the right sleeve where one of Shade’s attacks had bitten down.

Realizing he didn’t know how to sign Shade’s name, Gaster fell back on a more ancient language that was essentially named after his family: Wingdings. Conjuring up five hands, he willed them into the symbols that spelled out the ghost’s name. Grillby glanced up at the hands briefly, then nodded his head.

Their attention attracted by the sudden appearance of magical hands, Shade finally noticed Grillby; their mouth opened a little wider and they muttered, “whoa.” The exclamation was quiet and awed, and they leaned closer to Gaster to whisper to him. “Why couldn’t you put my soul into fire, instead?”

“You are  _ hotheaded  _ enough already, are you not?” the scientist quipped, smirking at Shade.

“Dude,” was all that they had to say in response to the pun, then they turned their attention to Grillby. “So, like, are your clothes fireproof, or what?”

The fire monster didn’t seem to notice that Shade had spoken, so Gaster turned to look at the expectant ghost. “He cannot communicate that way,” the scientist explained, “but if you wish I can ask him and interpret his answer.”

“He can’t hear me?” Shade asked, keeping his eyes on Grillby.

The bartender watched them speak this time, then looked back to Gaster. ‘ _ Are they trying to talk to me? I can’t read their lips...’  _ he paused in his motions, sheepish, then,  _ ‘their mouth is too weird.’ _

Even though Gaster knew that sign language could be blunt, and that fact was only compounded by Grillby’s personality, he still cringed. If Shade could understand the gestures, they would undoubtedly be hurt.

‘ _ They wanted to know how you don’t burn up your clothes, _ ’ he explained, mouthing the words as he went. He was rusty after months of keeping to himself. 

Rather than answering Gaster, Grillby reached out his hand and touched a finger against Shade lightly. The ghost jumped, surprised, then looked down at the flaming appendage touching their body. It was borderline scalding, but as Grillby concentrated and the glowing flames engulfing his hand grew a little dimmer, it cooled down significantly.

“Oh, so he can control how hot he burns?” Shade guessed, seeming impressed.

“I suppose so,” Gaster agreed. It was news to him, as well, although if he’d ever actually thought about it, he would’ve come to the same conclusion. All monsters that used fire magic could make their flames burn cooler.

Even with their question answered, Grillby poked at Shade’s midsection, his expression curious. He was likely wondering why he could touch the ghost, or perhaps what they were made of. Gaster tensed, prepared to sign at him to back off, but Shade only giggled at the attention.

“Hey, stop tickling me!” they barked playfully, squishing their pliable shadow form up and down. After processing the expression on their face, Grillby’s mouth opened up in a grin, wide enough to show a flash of magma.

“Will you two cease your flirting so that I can order? I am starving,” Gaster grumbled, holding back a smile.

“He started it!” Shade exclaimed, ignoring Gaster’s serious expression and manipulating their body to form a dark arm that reached across the counter to poke Grillby in return. The bartender backed up so quickly at the sight of the appendage, though, that he bumped against the back counter and elbowed a bottle over.

Reacting in an instant, Gaster caught the bottle before it could shatter on the floor using a quickly-conjured hand. Calmly, he lifted it and set it back where it belonged. Then, he gave Grillby a stern frown. He knew that the man had no problems with physical contact, so why...?

Shade’s arm had shrunk back into their body the instant Grillby had recoiled, and they had their downcast eyes fixed on the counter now. “Oh... sorry. Sometimes I forget... I’m kind of a freak,” they sounded crushed.

Seeing the expression on Shade’s face, Grillby quickly advanced forward to touch their side, somewhere where he figured where their shoulder must be, smiling encouragingly. ‘ _ I’m sorry, I’ve never seen a ghost like you,’  _ he signed, then looked helplessly at Gaster.

“He was just surprised that you can do that, Shade,” Gaster reassured the sad little creature. “He’s sorry,” the scientist added when Grillby repeated the gesture again.

Shade lightened up a little, but remained much more reserved and quiet for quite awhile. Grillby kept his distance too, and Gaster felt strangely guilty. Shade hadn’t deserved such a reaction. After the bartender brought their food, he quickly left them in peace.

Setting aside what had happened earlier, Gaster gazed hungrily at his plate of fries accompanied by his burger, salivating at the sight of grease still shimmering on the golden fries. But he could practically still hear them sizzling. Having no desire to burn himself, he instead focused on taking the top bun off his burger, smothering the patty with extra ketchup. Very nearly trembling with anticipation at this point, he reassembled his burger and picked it up, taking a massive bite.

“Dude, has it been like three days since you ate anything?” Shade joked, nudging the milkshake they’d ordered closer to their face and, by means unknown to the scientist, managed to suck it through the straw.

“I had some instant noodles yesterday,” the skeleton answered once he’d swallowed. Or... perhaps that was two days ago?” He pondered this while shovelling fries into his mouth. “Ah, yes. That was three days ago. I had oatmeal yesterday.”

Shade tossed their head back slightly, as if rolling their eyes, before generating an appendage to pick up a slice of their miniature pizza and taking a bite.

Once he had eaten through his mountain of fries, Gaster let out a long sigh that sounded a little  _ too  _ indulgent; he’d hoped it was quiet enough to escape Shade’s notice, but he had no such luck.

“Y’know, with how you approach literally everything else, I really expected you to be a  _ little  _ more graceful when you eat,” Shade teased the scientist.

“I assure you, I am normally a little bit more dignified,” the skeleton promised, wiping a smear of ketchup from the corner of his mouth abashedly. “But I have very little restraint when it comes to Grillby – his food, that is.”

Shade’s eyes grew a little as they shifted their attention over to where Grillby stood, back turned to them both as he mixed somebody’s drink. “He  _ is  _ one fine piece of-”

“ _ Ahem, _ ” Gaster cut them off by pretending to choke on his food momentarily. “He is probably twice your age, little haunt,” he finished, giving the ghost a warning glare.

Shade grimaced for a long moment, clearly displeased with Gaster’s use of what was, as far as ghosts were concerned, a species slur, but managed to push past it. “Hey,  _ I’m  _ not interested. I know you said earlier that your type is short and stout, but there’s gotta be room in your barren bone heart for the strong silent type. I mean, he can cook!” the ghost was teasing again, but this time it seemed significantly more effective.

Gaster let his chin rest in his hands, positioning his fingers so that they covered as much of his cheeks as possible – just in case they were starting to turn purple. Knowing he’d have to explain why he was so flustered, he searched for the words while looking at his half-eaten burger. “I could not... rather, I do not... er,” he hesitated, looking over at Shade’s mischievous stare. “We have already made certain mistakes. He was young and foolish, I was... intoxicated.”

Shade’s mouth dropped open and they let out a high-pitched, disbelieving laugh. “Dude, what the hell! I can’t believe you’ve  _ done it _ -”

The skeleton covered the ghost’s mouth with his hand, giving them a fierce look. “Grillby may not be able to hear you, but everyone else in the room can,” he muttered in a low voice, then released Shade, hunching over his plate as he finished his burger, now eating much more slowly.

“...We did not share souls,” Gaster found himself saying once they were both done eating. “I do not want to say anything... untoward of Grillby, but the reality is that I could not reciprocate.”

Even with so much left unsaid, the scientist still knew he had said too much. After all, Shade wasn’t  _ that  _ naive; they had probably at least familiarized themselves with the details of soul merging.

It was considered the most intimate act monsters could participate in, and rightfully so – the souls involved essentially became one temporarily, until a climax was reached. If conditions were right, a new soul could begin development and would become a child, but many simply took part for the sake of pleasure or intimacy.

During the merging of souls, certain things were revealed all too plainly; specifically, emotions. There was no possibility that Grillby actually  _ loved  _ Gaster – they’d both known that – so, Gaster hadn’t feared that the other monster would uncover his emotional detachment.

Truthfully, even though he didn’t know if it was even possible, Gaster was terrified at the thought of anyone sensing his LV if he merged souls with them. So, he kept his soul to himself. At least, as far as he remembered. He had consumed many drinks that night, under the guise of Grillby “practising his drink-making.”

Finally feeling like he’d begun to get over his shame at the topic, the skeleton looked over at Shade, trying to read their expression. He couldn’t help wondering what conclusion they had come to from his vague explanation – whether he didn’t have the passion and desire to merge souls with Grillby, or that there was something physically wrong with either of them. Either of the options were better than the truth, he supposed.

“Anyways. Shall we get down to business?” Gaster asked Shade. They looked at him blankly in response, slurping the last of their milkshake obnoxiously. “The Barrier?”

“Oh!” Shade exclaimed, then nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, dude, catch me up and we’ll go from there.”

It took Gaster only a few minutes to tell Shade about the human soul, and a few more to explain what had happened with the most interesting test subject in the Underlab. All things considered, it was a rather brief tale when he left out all of the personal details.

The ghost seemed very deep in thought following Gaster’s update, their dark mouth shutting altogether as they reflected on the skeleton’s words. “Alright... I’ll be honest, I don’t really know much about souls, but from what you’re saying, it sounds like, well... with the help of the human’s power, the mouse  _ refused  _ to die? Like the strength of it’s soul won out over the weakness of it’s body, this time.”

Gaster looked at them, tipping his head slightly in thought. He knew that they were smarter than they normally let on, but the way that they spoke – almost philosophically – about the resoluteness of souls... it was unexpected, but exactly the perspective that he had been seeking.

The scientist knew that he behaved as if souls were things, but sometimes neglected to remind himself that it made him an inflexible thinker.

“Poor thing. It must be in a lot of pain – you said it was old, right? By the sounds of it, it’s probably suffering. You should at least put it back with its family, and let it live out its last days in peace, rather than isolation,” they spoke with an amount of compassion that caught Gaster off-guard, and almost immediately he was faced with frustration.

“But...” he started impatiently, but quickly trailed off as Grillby approached, carrying a milkshake in one hand and a dark brown beverage in a cocktail glass in the other. He placed the milkshake in front of Shade, then leaned on the counter, sliding the other glass close to Gaster.

“Oh! Um, thank-you,” Shade exclaimed.

‘ _ They thank you,’ _ signed Gaster, leaning back slightly and looking down at the drink. Irish coffee. Grillby still remembered his preferred pre-evening drink.  _ ‘I don’t think I ordered this. Did I?’ _

The fiery monster smirked, shrugging slightly. ‘ _ You should stop by some night after I close and have a few more drinks on me, _ ’ Grillby signed, managing to keep a straight face until he added, ‘ _ for old time’s sake.’ _ Then he grinned, showing off his flaming maw for just a moment before striding off to serve someone who’d just walked in. Always so sure of himself.

Gaster felt his face turn purple and he buried it in his hands, stifling a noise of anguish. Shade, although oblivious to the exact words of the conversation, still had plenty of information to use simply from observing the mortified lilac blush spreading across the scientist’s face.

“Wow. Looks like your old flame still has a thing for you,” Shade chortled, smug.

“He said that you are invited, too,” Gaster lied quickly, trying to appear every bit as self-assured as Shade did as he sipped his drink cautiously. He could practically  _ feel _ the whisky wafting off it. Just how strong had Grillby made the drink?

The ghost didn’t have a way to physically blush, but their eyes widened and they giggled again, much more nervously this time. “As long as you’re involved, I think I’ll pass,” they said uneasily, then nudged their milkshake a little closer to their face and took a long sip.

The taste of coffee and alcohol mingling together strongly in Gaster’s mouth brought back memories of uncountable afternoons turning to evenings spent at this counter, scribbling out equations or reading soggy science magazines that had fallen into the dump. Sadly enough, they were some of his preferred memories.

“Huh. You know, I think he might  _ actually  _ like you,” Shade commented after Gaster had almost drained his drink. They’d kept an eye on Grillby while they drank, noting that he didn’t even glance over.

“I find that highly improbable,” the skeleton said back, dipping a finger into the bottom of his cup to collect the bit of sugar that remained in the bottom undissolved and sticking his fingertip into his mouth. As he looked around to locate Grillby, he realized that he could hear a phone ringing from somewhere. The bartender, of course, took no notice of it, until a monster that frequented the bar waved a hand to get his attention, then mouthed, “the phone.”

Grillby seemed rather puzzled, then signed, ‘ _ well, they’re not calling for me. _ ’ Groaning, the other monster stood unsteadily from his stool and walked behind the counter, vanishing into the kitchen. Gaster supposed that the drunken monster probably worked here; it was the only explanation he could come up with as to why they were here for at least eight hours every day.

“Why’s it so unlikely?” Shade was wondering aloud. “I mean, you’re super smart, and you’re a gentleman, sorta, when you’re not homicidal, and – well, you’re kinda old, but if Grillby is into older men, then-” they seemed to realize that Gaster wasn’t listening and trailed off.

“Doctor Gaster?” a slurred voice came from by the kitchen door. He had already been watching expectantly, dreading that the call was for him.

Who? Why? There were only two people who would know where to find him if he wasn’t at his Lab, and if it wasn’t Toriel, then...

“Son of a goat,” muttered Gaster, standing up from his chair. “I will only be a moment,” he assured Shade before walking to the far end of the counter and passing behind it. When he took the phone, he made sure to hold it slightly away from his ear, not wanting the greasy earpiece touching his skull. He leaned close to the kitchen door, speaking quietly.

“Hello, As-” he began.

“Howdy, Gaster!” the rumbling, very deep voice of Asgore, far too loud, rang from the earpiece. It gave Gaster yet another reason to hold the phone far from his ear, and he cringed.

“Despite having told you countless times already, I will issue a reminder: you do not need to shout at the phone. I can hear you perfectly well,” Gaster sighed, irritated.

“Oh... sorry,” Asgore was at least a little quieter now.

The scientist waited for several long moments, sighing deeply and massaging his left temple in a circular motion with his spare hand. If he’d known Asgore was going to call, he would have started drinking sooner. “Why are you calling?” he snapped finally, impatient.

“Oh! I just wanted to talk to you about how the Royal Guards are coming along, and... maybe ask... if you’ve seen Toriel?” Asgore’s voice started off cheerful, but quickly lost its disguise. “I want her to come home,” he added, quietly.

Gaster felt a twisting sensation in his abdominal cavity, and he drew a deep breath. Poor, poor, oblivious Asgore. He had never known of his Royal Scientist’s feelings for his wife, nor the fact that they had been mutual at some point. The king never would have found out, regardless of the path their lives took, but the scientist found it difficult to push the secret down now.

“Yes, I did pay her a visit. Do you wish to know what she had to say about you, my king?” Gaster could already feel the malice thickening his voice, heavy in his throat. “She told me, “you are only hurting yourself by coming here.” She no longer cares for you, Asgore, and I stopped long ago. So, spare me your pleasantries, monarch. Why have you called?”

The other end was silent for a rather long time, and Gaster listened carefully for any sign of the effect his words had had. He thought he heard Asgore sniffling, but he couldn’t be certain.

“Part of me thought that we would be friends again,” Asgore growled in a low voice, once he had shoved past his hurt and found his anger. “Well, that is fine. I called to ask you to put together seven stasis chambers for the human souls. But if that is how it is, I will have to  _ order  _ you. Have them ready in a week.”

Truthfully, Gaster was pleasantly surprised by the resolve in the other’s voice. He had always seen Asgore as too soft-hearted and cowardly to be king, yet it seemed tragedy could change even the most hopeless cases.

“Oh. Is that doable? Do you need more time?” Asgore asked anxiously after only a few seconds of silence, and Gaster scoffed audibly. How did this gentle idiot plan to kill even a single human? He couldn’t even conjure up the will to make demands of his employee and subject. How did he plan to commit to harming anything?

“No, that is fine,” the skeleton snapped. Truthfully, he’d built the stasis chambers required not long after analyzing the Barrier and the force it would take to break it – and then a few extra, just for something to do. In fact, he’d tried using one to isolate Shade’s soul before they were corporeal, simply to see if he could. But, even putting a ghost’s soul into stasis couldn’t stop them from phasing through everything.

“Good. You know, I was going to bring over a thermos of tea to share with you when I came to get them, but... I think I will send somebody else instead, now,” Asgore rumbled; he sounded almost apologetic.

“Gods, you are so  _ pathetic, _ ” Gaster spat the venomous words out before he even thought them. Admittedly, he was shocked by his own harshness, but there was no taking back those words now, so instead he built on them.

“You have been king for some time, and I thought you would change. I know that you do not want war. I know that you do not want to kill anyone. But you have garnered hope from a hopeless people, and you  _ cannot _ falter and disappoint them. We have all suffered too much for you to give in because you are  _ soft. _ ”

Asgore didn’t answer, but Gaster could hear his shaky breathing on the other end, until, at last, he drew in a deep and steadying sigh. “You are right. This is what I have to do. For my people,” Asgore’s voice was stronger now. “Thanks, Gaster. I won’t bother you again. Goodbye.”

The other end emitted a click and went dead. He’d hung up. Sighing, Gaster followed the cord back to the phone’s cradle and set it down. He took a moment, leaning against the oven, to set aside all of his emotions before returning to the bar to rejoin Shade. However, when he re-entered the front room, their spot was empty.

Gaster scanned the other monsters in the room, although part of him knew better. They’d left. For a split second, he actually felt hurt, but the emotions quickly passed. As he headed for the door he turned back and signed to Grillby, ‘ _ put it on my tab.’ _

The fiery man nodded, waving a hand in farewell. For a moment Gaster thought he looked concerned, but he didn’t have the strength left to explain. But if he could, he would’ve stayed. He would’ve told Grillby that he was tired of feeling, tired of being alive. Today had only been a stark reminder of that.

But he only waved back, then left the bar, heading home.

 


	9. It's Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OC #2

“Useless. It is all so useless.  _ Futile! _ The days tick by, nothing progresses, and I have nothing to show for my efforts,” Gaster shouted into his handheld recorder, turning faintly purple in the face. “I was idiotic to think that the souls of animals would be a suitable substitute for monster souls - they are as different as night and day, as human and monster!”

“I released the rest of those useless rodents in Waterfall. It was a hollow diversion. Now, back to reality. This is Entry Four, and here are the facts: The human soul’s strength to live on appeared to mutate the soul of an animal. This animal was near death, or suffering \- I believe that one of these two things altered its soul and gave to it the power to defy death, if only for a brief time - in addition, the soul gained power far beyond that of its peers.”

“Now, I need to recreate this result with a monster soul. But to so blatantly risk killing another person by dosing them and bringing them to the brink of death… Well. I must be certain before I take such drastic measures.”

“So… I am sitting here with my first dose of DT - or, Determination. Shade… they put it beautifully. The human soul’s power to persist after its death is an incredible feat of will - of Determination. We will see if this injection does not kill me, I suppose, and I will check in later to see if I do, indeed, survive.”

Gaster paused the recording and looked at his bedside table. He had considered his options, and finally settled on a path. It had taken months of exposure to DT for any of the animal test subjects to show results, and he simply didn’t have that sort of time. So, he planned to inject a measured dose directly into his soul.

Reaching over to pick up the syringe, the skeleton carefully unbuttoned his shirt down to his seventh rib and drew his soul out from behind his sternum. He had planned it this way. If the shot of DT killed him, he would at least have the privilege of turning to dust in his own bed. Few monsters could boast the same. 

Was it going to hurt? What if he brought himself to the doorstep of death, only to be held back by the very force he was trying to harness? What if the pain was unbearable, and despite all his wishing, it wouldn’t end?  
_Then I would be getting what I deserve,_ he thought, grinding his teeth together as he depressed the syringe enough to expel any air bubbles. Then, pushing aside his useless hesitations and reservations, he firmly embedded the needle into his soul and pushed the plunger all the way down.

The world turned red in an instant and Gaster instinctively made a lunge for his digital recorder, but he couldn’t seem to find it. In his head, there was nothing but manic laughter, all too familiar. He head heard it once before, when he nearly killed Sans. But it wasn’t his laughter; it sounded as if it belonged to a child.

Gaster closed his eyes tightly, but the red hue bled past his sockets and still he saw nothing else. When he dared to open his eyes again, he could vaguely make out the shapes around his room, but everything was tinted crimson. He reached again for his recorder, but instead knocked it onto the floor as he found himself unable to control his hand properly.

“Hiya, Gaster,” a child’s voice, though distorted, reached out from inside the scientist’s head. “Are you having some trouble? Well! Don’t look so mortified. We may have never met properly, but-”

The skeleton pushed himself to his feet and fled into the bathroom adjacent to his room, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him. Unable to stand independently, he leaned both his hands on the sink counter and stared himself in the eye in the mirror, fighting to hold onto reality. There was no voice within his head now - all was silent. His vision was beginning to return to normal again, but then it started to blur.

Unable to stay conscious, Gaster let go of the world and dropped to the floor like a stone. The next thing that entered his awareness was the sensation of warm, furry fingers running over his skull gently and a soft, silken robe serving as a pillow. 

“T...Toriel?” he asked aloud, curling and uncurling his fingers against the pink silk.

“No, silly,” the soft voice of a young woman reached his ears. So familiar… he managed to turn his head enough to see the monster’s face, struggling for breath. Brown eyes, soft and warm, gazed back at him and a soft paw caressed the crack beneath his eye.

“Ilea,” Gaster barely managed to utter the name. “Are you… dead? Am I dead?” he tried to lift his arm, but it barely twitched. “I am dead… correct? You do not seem an appropriate monster to take me to Hell.”

“Aww, come on, you dusty old pile of bones! We just spoke yesterday. I’m alive, and so are you. You’re just dreaming,” the monster explained in a playfully chiding voice.

“Oh.” The scientist grunted in pain as he sat up, taking the darkness surrounding the pair endlessly. “And, of all the monsters my subconscious could have conjured up to console me after a taxing experience, it chose you? Well, that is curious.”

Ilea shrugged her shoulders, her doting gaze never moving away from Gaster. Feeling uncomfortable beneath the affectionate expression, he avoided her eyes, instead looking at her robe. It was the same style and length as the one that Toriel normally wore, but in place of the Delta Rune at the centre was a simplified shape of a tree, shedding a single pink blossom.

The insignia of the now lost Trectop family. It, like the Delta Rune, had a meaning lost to time, but for Gaster the translation was now clear. Ilea sat before him, sorrowfully smiling, living on as the last member of her clan, like one bloom escaping a tree to float briefly on a wind before it withered forever.

“Wait. You are not here to comfort me, are you? No! This is a reminder. You are here so that I will remember your voice when I awaken! You are the other monster beyond the’ door,” Gaster exclaimed, reaching out to touch her muzzle, but his hand passed through. Her form was beginning to blur and distort as she faded away, until the only piece of  her that remained was the sigil on her robe, floating disembodied in the darkness.

 

When he awoke on the cold tile floor of his bathroom, drenched in sweat, the first thing that Gaster did was unlock the door from his stance on the floor and crawl back into his bedroom. He had no use for dignity at the moment, and could not find the strength to stand. He found his recorder, sitting on the floor next to his bedside table, and sat against his bedframe to continue the recording.

“Continuation of Entry Four. I appear to be alive, mostly. DT is not fatal to monsters at the dose I administered, it seems, but I would not hesitate to say that it is… unpleasant. There were hallucinations involved, and I then proceeded to lose consciousness within minutes of the injection. Physically, well… I feel as if I was in an altercation with a brick wall.” 

The scientist paused to clear his hoarse throat, looking away from his recorder as he did so to read the time on his alarm clock. “Gods. I have lost twelve - er, just short of thirteen hours. What in the name of… I have not slept so soundly in years, which would be a pleasant revelation if not for the fact I feel as if I have had a tonne of rocks dropped on me.”

Briefly, Gaster looked down at his unbuttoned shirt, running the fingers of his spare hand along his ribs, then unfastening the remainder of the buttons to inspect his spine. “The pain appears to be internal - I sport no physical signs that I am injured. I suppose that is to be expected, seeing as it is a pain of the soul and all.”

“Hm. Well. Since I am still alive, the experiment must go on. This was a learning experience. I will lower the dosage for the next administration, which will be in twelve hours. This concludes my first experience with DT.”

He stopped the recording and, using both hands, pushed off his bed so that he was standing, more or less. Unbalanced and weak, he placed the digital recorder on his bedside table next to  his reading glasses and stumbled across the room to his dresser. He couldn’t recall why, but he was plagued by the impression that he needed to be elsewhere, urgently.  

Opening one of the drawers, he pulled out a neatly folded white turtleneck that looked like it had seen its fair share of wear. Slipping his open navy blue button up off his shoulders, he prodded at it, noting that it was still damp from sweat. Frowning disdainfully, he tossed the shirt into the hamper next to the dresser and pulled the white turtleneck over his skull, then began to tuck it into his slacks as he crossed the room to his closet.

Instinctively, he took a lab coat off of a hanger and started to put it on, but stopped once one of his arms was through the sleeve. Recalling the numerous times he’d regretted wearing one on his last outing, he pulled his arm back out and hung it back up. He looked down at his shirt for a moment before tugging it upwards to untuck it from his pants, smoothing it down a few times. 

_ Ready, and no inkling of where to go,  _ Gaster thought to himself frustratedly. Although he would’ve rathered not think on it anymore, he closed his eyes and tried to sort through his experience with DT in search of something useful. He recalled nothing at first except the color red, and the presence of… something. Something horrific, with a voice beyond recognition. Shuddering, he pushed further into the memory.

He’d run into the bathroom and locked himself in, then fallen unconscious, then… then…  _ Ilea.  _ His subconscious had brought an answer about the other monster behind the Ruins door.

So, it was another trip to the other end of the Underground, then. Toriel would not be pleased.

Shaking his head, Gaster left his bedroom and headed for the main doors of the Lab; once there, he armed the alarm and locked the automatic doors on his way out, sure to grab a jacket this time as well. He would likely be spending some time waiting in the snow yet again.

For now, though, he draped the jacket over his arm as he headed to the Riverperson’s Hotland stop. It was early in the day yet, and although they had no default place to stay, Gaster doubted that they had any better place to be. At times of the day when they weren’t busily transporting people through the Underground, they seemed to somehow know where they were wanted. However, it still took the Riverperson upwards of ten minutes to show up, and by then, Gaster was deeply regretting his choice of wearing a turtleneck.

“Tra la la,” they hummed as they pulled up, turning to acknowledge him. “Why, if it isn’t Doctor Gaster again,” they commented as the skeleton carefully climbed onto the boat, feeling particularly unsteady on his feet after his earlier ordeal. “Where to, Doctor?”

“Snowdin again,” Gaster muttered, clutching onto the edges of the boat as a dizzy spell washed over him. He was beginning to question whether or not he was fit enough to make the trip, but the boat was already disembarking. 

Once they passed into the caves of Waterfall, Gaster began to wish he’d brought a flashlight and a book. Yet, somehow, the ride seemed no longer than if he had caught the boat from the stop in Waterfall. 

_ Trick of the mind,  _ the scientist thought dismissively as he carefully stepped off the boat and onto the riverbank of Snowdin. He felt no less shaky than when he’d first awoken, and it occurred to him that he may have harmed himself worse than he’d originally thought. He tried to shake off the paranoia and nodded gratefully to the Riverperson.

They responded with a barely-audible “off you go,” before turning sharply to stare down the river in the direction they’d come as if responding to a call only they could hear. Then, their boat shifted in the water, seeming to come to life - it sprouted four legs and a decisively doglike face, turning in the water and then sprinting off, splashing on the surface rather than sinking, as physics should have dictated.

“Well. I am still hallucinating. Fantastic,” the scientist muttered aloud to himself, rubbing both his temples in a circular motion. Before making his way into the town of Snowdin, he pulled his jacket on and buttoned up the first few buttons. It was another mild day, but the cold was not so kind to him in his weakened state.

Upon entering Snowdin, the first thing that Gaster noticed was how quiet it was. With all the children closed away in school, the pleasant little village seemed more like a ghost town. Even Grillby’s appeared dark and empty when he passed, save for a flicker of fire that he assumed was the silent barkeep himself. Not wanting to be seen looking in, he hurried past.

He had considered stopping to ask the man where everyone was hiding, but he was more inclined to avoid him after the events of his last visit, two nights prior. He was surprised to find that he was  _ hoping  _ to see any of the royal guard dogs as he headed to the Ruins, but the way was as deserted as the town of Snowdin. 

For a lack of better ideas, Gaster wondered if there was a royal address being held at the moment. It was the only explanation he wanted to consider. Asgore and Toriel had once held them monthly, but they often happened on short notice if something came up - and, word of mouth travelled quickly in the Underground. Monsters that lived isolated lives, such as Toriel or Shade, likely would not have attended, but nearly everyone else in the Underground would dutifully travel to the castle to hear their king’s words.

Even a logical explanation didn’t seem to offer much help - Gaster still found himself feeling more unnerved than ever as passed snowy trees and… what were they called? Snow poffs. The solitude, the tense air… it brought forth memories of the early days underground, when so many had lived in constant fear, hidden away in whatever shelters they could find or build. Even with all the convincing and reassurance from the king and queen, it still took years before the Underground became their home; and, even then, the monsters who had seen the war still looked over their shoulders, fearful.

Even if the humans hadn’t spilled enough monster blood to satisfy them during the war, they had no real reason to follow them here. They had been sealed below out of mistrust and fear. The slaughter, however, went far beyond self-defense. Was it for honor? Sport?  _ Fun? _ Gaster wasn’t sure, even with all his lust for knowledge, that he wanted to know.

Distracted by his bleak thoughts, it felt like a blink before the Ruins door came into view; he greeted it the same way he had last time, by laying his hand gently on the center of the Delta Rune. Then, he rapped his knuckles against the door firmly, wondering if the noise had managed to echo all the way through the basement and up the stairs. 

When he felt he had waited long enough, he knocked once more, harder. Perhaps Toriel had only heard him previously because she happened to pass by the stairs while he hit his skull against the door. 

Fretful, he realized that she wasn’t necessarily home at all; she could have gone to roam about the Ruins. Gaster had to remind himself that it wasn’t Toriel that he had come to speak with. In fact, if the queen answered, he likely wouldn’t be able to speak to Ilea anyways; she had seemed quite confident to keep the girl away from him last time.

On his third knock, Gaster was beginning to lose hope, and along with it, the energy that he had managed to conjure up to come all this way. 

“Hello…?” the voice from his dream answered him from behind the door seconds after his third knock. She seemed to be keeping her voice low purposefully, but as a consequence, Gaster wasn’t certain who was speaking.

“Knock-knock,” the scientist said, cautious.

“Pardon me?” the girl on the other side returned.  _ Not Toriel,  _ he decided,  _ definitely not. _

“Hello, Ilea. I believe we spoke recently,” he, too, kept his voice low as he spoke, resting his forehead against the door both for clarity and due to his weakness.

“Gaster…” the girl’s voice trembled as she said his name, but she pressed on. “Part of me thought that you’d forgotten all about me, but… that was silly of me, wasn’t it?”

Unable to bring himself to answer, the skeleton shut his eyes. In an instant he was wrapped in memories as vivid as the day they had happened; his breath and mind seemed to leave him behind.

The Trectop family had formed a protective line. Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. The head of the clan stood strong, her hands ready to signal the command to attack. Their first and last fight ended in dust and tears; they disintegrated, one after another, agonized by the irony that they needed just  _ one  _ human soul to end it all. 

They were a proud and honorable family, older than history, subservient only to the Dreemurrs - and every member took this dignity into their paws and ran to their deaths, even the bleating goat kids not yet old enough to sprout horns. Only one survived to see the brutal slaughter with her own eyes.

Instead of charging when it came down to the last and youngest of the Trectops, Ilea fled under a hail of attacks, crying out to all whom she had lost; but not for protection, nor out of fear. Instead she launched an apology at the heavens that she did not possess the bravery to lay down her life alongside them.

And, just like that. A family tree that predated every one that grew in the ground, ripped up by its roots and burned - gone. Except for her.

After they were driven underground, the young girl had been taken on as a resident in the castle, where she could be looked after and taken care of. Even after all the love and nurturing that Toriel had to offer, she could not make herself whole; nothing could undo the guilt. After Asriel was born and Ilea found herself pushed into the background, she had made an attempt to end her pain forever - and had very nearly succeeded.

With the Soul Repair Bay, Gaster had saved her life, even if it wasn’t her will. But he’d known, the moment Asgore carried her comatose body into the Lab, that even if she survived the night, she would never truly be alive. Not like that. 

“Gaster?” Illea’s soft, uncertain voice pulled his head above the memories he drowned in, and he let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Yes, I am here. My apologies. I was lost in memories for a moment,” he said sheepishly, pressing his palm to the door and reminding himself why he was here; it certainly wasn’t for the sake of reminiscing. “Tell me, little flower: can you open the door from that side without Toriel?”

“You’re still calling me that?” Gosh, Gaster, you know I’m not a little girl anymore, don’t you?” she giggled - the scientist could almost hear her blush. After a moment of embarrassed silence, she turned her attention to his inquiry. “I think it does, but if Toriel catches me talking to you with the door open, she’ll, well… I don’t know! But she’ll sure be mad.”

“Very well, that is your decision,” he couldn’t quite keep a note of disappointment out of his voice. “I had hoped to speak with you face-to-face, but I understand.” As he spoke, he pushed against the door feebly. 

“Just tell me. Is it time?”

He almost froze up, but managed to choke an affirmative answer of, “yes, little flower, it is time.”

Gaster wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard her draw a deep breath in preparation before the massive purple door creaked open, parting down the middle and sweeping outwards. The scent of burning sugar filled the air, and a hot gust of air from the doorway forced the skeleton to shield his face briefly. When he lowered his arm, she was waiting, looking just as she had in his dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next several chapters are quite fast-paced, up until where the fic essentially moves into the third "main arc." (As far as I can tell, there are five or six "arcs," the shortest being chapters 1-5.) But that's not important~


	10. Ilea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A soft spot in the boneman's soul?! Whaaaat!?

Ilea’s somber brown eyes met Gaster’s steadily as she stepped forward bare-pawed into the snow. The radiant white light hit her lilac-tinted, shaggy fur, making it shine boldly. The cream-colored patch over her eye, vaguely blossom-shaped, captured Gaster’s attention; this time, when he reached forward to touch her, his hand met with the thick, soft fur of her muzzle.

Thumbing the marking around her eye gently, he felt emotions clogging up his throat. Did she know? She was the one monster that he had done right by in his recent wretched years - and now, he had come to end that.

“So, you still recall the promise that you made to me, little flower...” the scientist spoke in a wavering voice that rather surprised him. He moved his hand to her ear, briefly rubbing the velvet-smooth surface between his fingers before letting his hand drop.

“Of course I do, or I wouldn’t have-” she began teasingly, but trailed off quickly as she took in the expression on Gaster’s face.

“I… I wish to hear the story as you would tell it,” he barely whispered, closing his sockets as they began to burn with the threat of tears.

“Gaster…?” Ilea whined, looking closely at him. “Are you…”

“Please,” he interrupted insistently, daring to open his eyes and look at her. All he could think of when she looked him in the sockets was how weak he must appear to her.  _ Why is…? Where is this emotion coming from?  _ He wondered, clenching his fists and trying to stamp down his heartache.

Ilea reached forward to cusp Gaster’s chin as he looked down into the snow, as if he didn’t possess the strength to hold her gaze. After a moment’s pause, she brightly suggested, “let’s sit!” Turning away from Gaster, she got down on all fours and cleared the soft, powdery snow down to the packed layer in a Gaster-sized spot against the wall. 

He would have argued, but he felt too drained. Giving in, he sank down next to Ilea. The smell of brown sugar surrounded him, and his side that touched hers was kept perfectly warm as she wiggled in the snow, asserting her place in the light powder. She stared off into the snowy distance for a few minutes before finally speaking.

“My first memory is one of my mother. She was cooking in the kitchen, and everything smelled like caramelized sugar. She was telling me stories about our family. I learned so much from her…” Ilea paused for a second, her carefree voice deepening  and hardening as she continued. “My last memory of her is one of her grabbing my shoulder and looking me in the eyes, and saying “Ilea, we have to go,” and then we were running. There’s so many bits and pieces… you, Toriel, Asgore, the dark underground and the castle...”

“Then, I wake up in your lab - you’re telling me that the procedure went well, but I shouldn’t try to get up just yet. I remember feeling like I had never felt before - like an incredible weight that I had always been carrying had been lifted. When I told you that, you smiled and… you stroked my face,” Ilea hesitated a moment, touching the marking over her eye for a second, her paw shaking slightly. “Then, you offered me tea, because you already knew I didn’t care for coffee. That was the first time you called me “little flower,” wasn’t it?”

Gaster didn’t answer, rapt by the serenity in her voice.

“You told me: “it is going to be alright now.” And… I believed you. You looked really happy about something, but I didn’t understand back then, but I knew I owed you a debt. So, I said to you: “I can pay you. My family was very rich.” But you shook your head and said, “I have no need for your money.” So… I said “My family was very well-connected. I can-” but you interrupted and said, “I am not interested in your connections.””

He listened contently to the story with an absent smile that grew slightly as he heard the way she imitated him with an exaggeratedly deep voice. 

“So, eventually, we reached an impasse. I owed you a life debt, but had no way of repaying you. I couldn’t dishonor my family by ignoring what I owed you, but had nothing that you wanted. But you put a hand on top of my head and assured me: “it is alright, little flower, settle yourself. I will make you a promise: when the time comes for you to repay your debt, I will come and find you. Until that time, I ask that you live your life happily. Do not live as if you owe me. Do you promise me that?” And I… I was scared. You seemed so  _ certain _ that a time would come when you needed something from me.”

Gaster curled his hands up into fists, all happiness now gone from his face. “Ilea, you must know: people like me -  _ monsters  _ like me - we will not stop pursuing their goals, no matter the cost. However, I have my reservations about this. So, the pact we made… your “debt” - I will give you an opportunity now.  _ One  _ opportunity. If you wish it, I will leave you to your life with Toriel and drop our agreement. I will never resent you, nor hold it against you. You will be able to live the remainder of your life without a shadow looming - you will no longer have to dread the moment that the time comes.”

Ilea was silent for quite some time, staring out at the trees and the flat path that stretched away further than the eye could see. 

“In truth, I had hoped that this promise would perish with you after a long and content life,” Gaster said quietly, putting his hand lightly on her knee and flexing his fingers against the silk of her robe. “But it can still be undone. I am asking you to say “no.” If you do not, I fear… you will rather regret the path it will set you on.”

Ilea turned to meet Gaster’s serious, empty-socketed gaze with a sunny smile. “I planned to keep my promise all along and you are  _ certainly _ not going to scare me out of it after all these years, you silly pile of bones!” she chided gently, putting her hand atop his and pushing it away. Moments later, her expression became solemn. 

“I have lived years that were not mine to live, Gaster - you saved my life and gave me strength.” Ilea stared into her lap wordlessly for a moment before lifting her head, turning to meet the scientist’s gaze with brave resoluteness. 

“My mother taught me that a monster is only as good as their word - that is something even you cannot erase. You were true to your word - here you are,” she hesitated for a second before bumping his shoulder lightly with her own. “And I think we both know that I’m a better person than you, so I can’t break a promise you’ve kept! Understand?”

Even though her words themselves were undeniably spiteful, she still spoke in the same gentle voice, looking at him warmly. Letting out a hefty sigh, Gaster shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Why? Why couldn’t she have refused? Her consent, though given freely, would not excuse his actions; he reminded himself this firmly.

“So… what does Doctor Gaster want with me that he’s danced around so timidly?” Ilea wondered aloud, tipping her head to the side. “If you keep this up, you’re going to turn into a Whimsun!”

“Hm. Well. You know me -  I have a  _ spine _ , but I do not possess the guts to  _ back  _ it up,” Gaster deflected the question slyly, intertwining the fingers on either of his hands together. 

“Oh, get it over with, will you?” Ilea urged softly.

“I need to experiment on your soul,” the scientist blurted out before he could get sucked into a loop of silence. After a quick glance at the goat monster’s bemused expression, he swallowed hard. “I can see from your expression that you do not realize the gravity of my request. To be truthful with you from the beginning: a vast majority of the souls -  _ people  _ \- I experiment on do not survive. Are you truly willing to repay your debt with your very life?”

Ilea turned her body in the snow, sitting so that she was facing Gaster now. Acting with a boldness that she rarely possessed, she took hold of both of his hands and enclosed them in her paws, leaning close to look him in the eye.

“It is a life debt. It can only be repaid by my life,” her voice was flat and blunt, her eyes locked with the Royal Scientist’s resolutely.

“I may condemn you to a fate worse than death,” he persisted, still trying to dissuade her.

“ _ So be it! _ ” the goat monster snapped, reaching the end of her patience. Composing herself, she looked down at their joined hands, unable to look at Gaster’s taken aback expression. 

“Look, I… I’ve been having nightmares for a long time. They got worse just before Asriel was taken from us, but they come every night now. I can see humans coming for us… smell monster dust in the air...”

Even though he’d known that the trauma of her past would linger forever in her nightmares, hearing Ilea speak of them left a hollow feeling within Gaster. He had been so certain when he’d first seen Ilea that unburdening her was the one thing that he had not failed at, but suddenly he lost confidence in that, as well. He squeezed her hands gently in reassurance, wishing that he could comfort himself too. 

“And then the human passed through the Ruins, and…” Ilea’s voice wavered and cracked as tears welled up in her eyes. “It was like my nightmares were real. I knew that they were only a child, yet all the logic in the world couldn’t make me feel any less  _ terrified.  _ But Toriel promised that they meant no harm, and let them pass through.”

Gaster tensed, looking at Ilea with wide sockets, wondering if he had heard her correctly. “Did you. Just say. A human?” he demanded disjointedly. 

“Well, yes. I assumed you already knew! You’re supposed to know everything - you’re the Royal Scientist,” the girl said, clasping her paws together anxiously. “Toriel wouldn’t have wanted you to know, I suppose, but-”  
“When did they leave the Ruins?” Gaster interrupted.

“Erm - they left a few hours before you spoke to Toriel last. I really thought you knew! Come to think of it, you should have passed them on your way he-”

Suddenly, the skeleton remembered the crackle in the woods on his way to the Ruins, and the feeling that there was something waiting, watching. Could it be?

Gaster could see Ilea’s mouth moving as she continued to speak, but found himself no longer able to hear her words. He lumbered to his feet and started off down the path to Snowdin, deaf to the girl’s plaintive call as she stared after him with eyes full of concern.

_ How could I let this happen?  _ The skeleton scolded himself fiercely, leaving the door of the Ruins behind as he backtracked to Snowdin, praying that the statuesque state of the town was only a facade.  _ How could I ever live with myself if I let them all die? Grillby… Sans… Papyrus! _

The Royal Scientist started running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww heck.


	11. Bravery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My OCs have no chill? A third one?? What

A human running loose in the Underground! Child or not, Gaster couldn’t comprehend why Toriel allowed it. What if they had come here on purpose, to cause harm? Trapped beneath the ground with no escape, countless monsters could die at the hands of careless disregard, nevermind a human who carried the intent to kill. 

Holding the empty silence of Snowdin town in his mind, Gaster’s earlier weakness was now forgotten; fear alone drove him forward, even once he was gasping for breath. When he reached the sign reading ‘Welcome to Snowdin Town!’ he stopped long enough to gulp for air, leaning his hands on his knees and bending his spine. Then he scanned the town, searching for any signs of life. Nothing stirred in the frozen air - not even a single snow crystal drifting down  from above.

Abandoning his selfish reluctance from earlier, the skeleton hurried passed the Snowed Inn and pulled the door open to Grillby’s, squinting in the relative darkness. As he’d thought, Grillby was standing at the counter, expressionless, wiping down a liquor glass he held in his hand as if on autopilot. 

When the scientist first entered, the flame monster became very still, even the flickering light of his head seeming to freeze. Then, he held an index finger up to his face somewhere around where his mouth was, signaling Gaster to be silent.

‘ _ Where is everyone? _ ’ the skeleton signed frantically. Grillby’s only response was to beckon him closer, and Gaster advanced until he was close enough that the light from the fire monster illuminated him. Realizing that his signing had been unreadable due to the backlighting from the windows, he repeated his question.

Grillby walked to the swinging door that blocked off the kitchen and pushed it open, waving Gaster over. He sidestepped so that he could see into the kitchen and found himself unable to contain a sigh of relief. The young rabbit innkeeper was huddled there with her husband, along with Doggo and many other faces he didn’t recognize. 

‘ _ And the children? _ ’ Gaster asked, feeling his soul sink as he realized he couldn’t spot Sans or Papyrus among the monsters gathered in the kitchen.

‘ _ The dog couple are guarding them in the school, _ ’ Grillby answered, letting the kitchen door flap shut again as he responded.

Breathing deeply, the scientist let both his hands lean on the stool in front of him. His legs felt weak now, and he feared he wouldn’t be able to stand for much longer. ‘ _ The human, _ ’ he signed at last, giving into his weakness and sinking into the stool closest to him. 

At first, Grillby only shook his head - which could have meant anything - but after he adjusted his glasses and returned to his place behind the counter, he began a response. However, before he could sign anything coherent, the door behind Gaster swung open suddenly, almost noiselessly; only the sound of air  _ whooshing  _ in the wake of the door alerted him. 

Within seconds, Grillby had vaulted over the counter and had his arms up, ready to unleash a flame attack; Gaster staggered up more slowly and swung around, an unfamiliar feeling washing over him. It had been many years since he had last felt compelled to fear for his own life.

“Gaster…?” Ilea’s fearful voice reached his ears and he quickly realized it was her outline against the white light shining through the windows, not a human’s. Scrunching up his face against the intense heat wafting off Grillby, he gingerly put a hand on the bartender’s arm. His head jerked around to look at the skeleton and he held his gaze for a few seconds before nodding once, taking a step back and letting his fighting stance drop.

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have followed you,” the goat monster’s voice bordered on hysterical as she rushed forward and and pressed close to Gaster, eyeing Grillby fearfully. Reflexively, he put a hand on her back and was surprised to feel her paws clutching at the front of his jacket. 

“T-Toriel came downstairs with another h-human right after you l-left,” she choked on the words, staring at the fabric of Gaster’s shirt in front of her eyes. “Th-they’re looking for their friend...  the one that already left. B-but…” 

The sharp stubs of Ilea’s horns dug into him as she pressed her forehead into his chest, tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes as she shut them tightly. “I didn’t even stop to think. I-I just ran after you,” she whispered, still holding onto him tightly.

“H...hush, little flower, you are alright,” Gaster reassured the girl, breathing softly into the fur atop her head as he spoke. Realizing that she had begun to cry, the scientist found himself barely able to breathe. Not knowing what else to do, he lifted his other arm to wrap around her back and gently touched his teeth to the top of her head. 

“I will pr…” he started, but couldn’t find within himself what he needed to finish the sentence. Instead, he said, “no human will harm you here.”

Even out of the corner of his eye, Gaster didn’t fail to notice Grillby’s expression - part disgust, part surprise - as he watched the alien gestures of tenderness. Eventually, he averted his gaze from the two, shaking his head and pushing at the bridge of his glasses uncomfortably.

Once he thought that she had calmed enough, Gaster put his hands on Ilea’s shoulders and pushed her back gently so that he could look her in the eyes. “There is another human on their way here now, yes?” 

He was interrogative now, all signs of his earlier feigned kindness vanishing. As his pupils vanished and his face hardened into an emotionless, hollow grimace, it struck Ilea for an instant that she had run away from the wrong creature. 

“Y-y-y-” she stuttered,  never managing to cough up a full confirmation. It was enough for Gaster, however, and he turned his attention towards the door, his face changing from stony neutrality to a murderous scowl.

“Very well. Grillby will keep you safe here while I… handle this. Stay here. Do you understand?” 

Ilea’s body crashed into his as she clutched onto him as if he were the only thing keeping her afloat in a tossing sea; he felt the breath driven out of him by the impact and stumbled slightly, shocked. He only just stopped himself from shoving her away, instead throwing his arms up in a helpless shrug behind her back before turning his head so that he could see Grillby more easily. He shrugged as well.

‘ _ I’m not going to go fight them, that’s for sure, _ ’ he signed humorlessly. 

Willing himself to be patient, Gaster gestured for the bartender to move closer. He wasn’t able to sign with a hysterical goat monster attached to him, so the flame monster would have to read the words from his mouth instead. 

“Can you tell me the fate of the human that already passed through here?”

Grillby hesitated a moment, grimly, then brought his index finger up to his throat and drew it across quickly.

“Dead?” gaped the scientist, astonished. “Who? How?”

It was difficult to decipher the entire story due to how swiftly Grillby began signing, but Gaster managed to pick up the most important details: the human had waited in the forest until the monsters of Snowdin had gone to bed and attempted to steal through town undetected, but was spotted by a skeleton who had “just showed up one day.” The fight that had ensued awoke the entire town. And now, they were hidden, fearing for their lives, waiting for someone of authority to come and take the soul.

“Does Sa - does that skeleton still have the soul?” Gaster asked urgently. When Grillby nodded, he promptly decided that he couldn’t waste time comforting Ilea any longer. If he could get his hands on the soul before Asgore came to retrieve it… 

Firmly, he pushed the goat monster away, instead guiding her to a stool at the bar and, using both hands on her shoulders, directed her to sit down. “Please, Ilea, stay here,” he said to her as he headed towards the door. She reached out a hand towards him, but he was already out of arm’s length.

Stopping close to Grillby, Gaster leaned into his glow long enough to hiss, “if you let any harm befall her, regardless of our history, I will  _ end  _ you.”

The bartender shrank back instinctively, although he would have preferred to disguise any reaction he’d had to the threat. After a few moments of hand-wringing, Grillby backed away from Gaster and returned to his spot behind the counter; whether he was following the command or simply doing what he would have done either way remained a mystery to Gaster, but he had no more time to waste. Pushing aside his guilt after treating two people dear to him so harshly, he turned his back on them both and left the bar.

“Ngaaaaaah!” a battle cry from the far end of Snowdin greeted him as he stepped out into the cold, letting the door swing shut behind him. Though he didn’t recognize the ferocious yell, Gaster instantly felt dread thumping in his chest. Breaking into a run, he advanced towards the sounds of fighting.

“Stay still, you little BRAT!” a rough voice shouted as Gaster came close enough to identify the two fighters. One monster, one human. They both turned to face Gaster, shocked, when he drew near.

“Who are you!? The citizens of Snowdin are supposed to be hiding! Didn’t you get the memo?” the monster shouted, pointing her hand at him - he noticed immediately that the fingers were heavily webbed, so that she couldn’t point a single digit. 

“I could easily ask the same of you,” Gaster shot back coolly, ignoring her in favour of staring at the human. They bore a bright orange soul emblazoned on their chest, vibrant against their striped shirt; a bandana held back their long, dark, braided hair. Practically vibrating on the spot with energy, they waited for the next attack.

“I said, who are you!??” the other monster shouted, drawing herself up to full height; a crimson gleam shone from within her helmet.

“I do not have to answer to you!” Gaster’s voice rose with frustration and he towered menacingly, his attention now turning on the strange monster.

“Well, if neither if you’ll introduce yourself… Hiya! I’m-” the human began to speak in an energetic, rasping voice, only to be cut off by a sudden magic attack launched at them by the armored monster. The human jumped aside agilely and the attack fell harmlessly into the snow.

“Whoa, whoa, okay!” the human gasped, holding up both their hands. “Listen, I don’t want to fight either of you! I’m just here looking for my friend. They told me they were running away to live with the monsters, but I thought they were kidding! But then they went missing, and I… uh…”

Gaster’s chest ached as it occurred to him that the orange-souled human had yet to find out that their friend was dead. Before he could say anything, though, the other monster took advantage of the human’s brief moment of distraction to attack again.

Bullets zipped through the air too swiftly for Gaster to be certain, but they seemed to swim through the air weightlessly, each emitting a sharp  _ clack _ noise, like teeth snapping shut. The human’s attention was drawn by the sound, but it looked as if it was too late for them to get clear; but, rather than trying to retreat, they charged straight ahead towards the attacks. Not wanting to watch the carnage, Gaster squeezed shut his eyes - only to hear the bullets thump uselessly into the snow. 

“Argh! That’s it! I’ve had enough!” the warrior shouted, putting a hand on her helmet and pulling it off, tossing it into the snow, revealing a pale blue scaley face and murderous red eyes. “Listen, kid! Your little trip ends here and now, with your DEATH! Just give up already, and hand over your soul - or I’ll have to use my  _ special attack _ !”

Vaguely intrigued by the exchange now, Gaster remained quiet. He had never met this monster before, but her armor was undoubtedly that of a Royal Guard. She seemed rather confident that she was a match for a human - one that could move through attacks, no less. How odd. And amusing.

“Yeah, right! You can’t kill me! You can’t even  _ hit  _ me!” the kid giggled, lightly pounding their pink-gloved fist into their other palm. “Y’know, my ma always told me that the way I run into trouble was gonna get me killed someday. Can’t wait to get home and tell her how wrong she was, heh.”

The Royal Guard glowered at the human for a few moments before turning to Gaster, softening a little. “Civilian, please step away. I don’t want to hurt you with any stray bullets.”

Pulling his attention away from the orange soul exposed on the human’s chest, he looked at the other monster. While she waited for him to obey, she reached up to her head with both hands and began to unravel the large knot that had been braided up inside her helmet. At first, he had assumed it was hair, or even a fin, but when it’s binding fell away, revealing a tendril half the  length of her body, he found himself at a loss for answers. 

All-in-all, the scientist didn’t exactly know  _ what  _ this monster was; with her webbed fingers and scaley face, he had assumed she was a fish monster, but neither the strange tendril on her head or the voluminous, puffy magenta lips set in her sky blue face seemed to add up. 

More out of a desire to continue watching the events than anything, the skeleton backed up against the outer wall of his old house, tucking himself out of the way of attacks. The Royal Guard seemed to deem it good enough and swung around to face the human, her eyes alight with the fire of battle, yet oddly serene.

“Seven. Seven human souls, and we monsters will break the barrier and taste revenge,” the Royal Guard spoke quietly all of a sudden; a chilled wind swept through Snowdin as if roused by her words. Her solemn eyes fixed on the human’s soul, elliptical pupils growing. 

“Human. You have been very brave, and if things were different, I would have preferred to fight with you, not against you. I… I believe my daughter would have liked to be your… friend. But things can’t be like that ever again - not after what your kind has taken from us. You have great courage to have come this far, but it ends here. Die.”

A blinding green flash flooded from the orb at the end of the tendril sprouting from her head, causing both Gaster and the human to shield their eyes. When the scientist dared to look again, the human was struggling frantically to free themselves from the ground, their soul now dyed green by magic.

“Let’s see what good your “bravery” is against  _ that! _ ” the Royal Guard crowed triumphantly.

The wind was howling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably going to update Sunday and Tuesday and Friday just for the next week 'cuz these next couple chapters are very fast paced, somersaulting towards the third "section" also because I feel like it.


	12. OHHHHHH WHAT THE!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i quit titles

“W-wh-what’d you do to me!? Why can’t I move?” the human gasped, pulling powerlessly against the rooting magic cast over their soul.

“Simple! As long as you’re GREEN, you can’t run around and move through my attacks! Now, I can take your soul!” the royal guard cackled, her lips pulling back into a grin that revealed long, needlelike teeth that elicited a shriek of fright from the child.

Part of Gaster wanted to protest against this method; GREEN magic was reserved for sparring matches to practice shielding spells - not for rooting young humans to the ground so that they could be slaughtered. But he said nothing, reminding himself of the innumerable times that he had done something he deemed necessary, even when he knew that it was blatantly wrong.

Standing by and letting something happen wasn’t exactly Gaster’s preference, but he knew: if he lifted even a single finger to end the child's pain swiftly, he could lose himself forever - and if he tried to stop the warrior and protect the child, it would be far too easy to accidentally kill her. So he could only watch, half-petrified, as the first attacks fell on them and they cried out for help - then, eventually, mercy.

 _No,_ he decided, _I will not stand by and watch this. There is still something that I can do._

Keeping both hands subtly at his sides, Gaster concentrated all his attention on the human’s soul. Many, many years of practice and a high LV served him well in that moment, as they were the only things that made his rusty GREEN magic powerful enough. As the human covered their face, sobbing out for help, a translucent green shield popped up in front of them and absorbed the next incoming attack.

Immediately, the Royal Guard’s face scrunched up with rage; her soft lips had shut over her teeth while things went her way, but now they drew back into a ferocious toothy snarl again. “Hey! Stop doing that!” she barked, then added more quietly, “how ARE you doing that?”

Realizing that the attack had never hit them, the child dared to look between their fingers at their tormenter, tears streaming down their face. Though they were torn open and bleeding, they threw their hands down at their sides and faced up to the monster which was easily twice their size. Not fearless, but still remarkably resolute.

Flustered and furious, the Royal Guard threw her head back and emitted a fierce battle cry. “Fine! This won’t stop me! Nothing will stop me! Just DIE already!!”

Piranha-shaped bullets flew from every direction now, and the human rapidly turned their shield, absorbing attack after attack. Even after minutes passed and Gaster began to feel the strain of shielding the child, neither battlers showed any sign of weakening. But he was not going to be the first to give in.

Between the scaled monster’s attacks, the human only stared her down boldly though blood streamed down their face and they were scarcely able to continue standing. A chill danced down Gaster’s spine. The expression on their face seemed more than a refusal to fight; almost as if they were goading her, but there was no pride in their eyes.

No… it wasn’t a taunt, but a warning: “you can kill me, but you will have to watch me die; watch the light die out of my eyes. But I _won’t_ go down easily.”

Why wouldn’t they fight back? Defend their own life? Even this powerful monster didn’t genuinely stand a chance of surviving if they decided to strike back.

At last, the Royal Guard seemed to tire. The little bulb, glowing green at the end of her tendril, started to flicker; then, it died out altogether and the human’s soul blazed orange once more. The gills on her neck flared aggressively as she fought to regain her breath. The human dropped onto all fours once released, panting and staring in shock at the blood that spattered the snow around them.

Quickly, Gaster let the shield drop and wiped away a bit of purplish sweat that had beaded up on his skull regardless of the icy wind.

While the three struggled to recover, Gaster thought again of the soul that Sans was holding onto. He couldn’t kill this human, but he could take the soul from Sans; after all, he was waiting for someone “of authority” to come claim it - and who had more authority regarding souls than he? Glancing at the Royal Guard, the scientist began to edge towards the steps leading up to his old home, but before he could put a hand on the doorknob, it swung open on its own.

The tall skeleton shrank away, cringing against the sharp pain that drove into his soul; it ached so fiercely that it took a moment for him to identify the sensation as emotional.

A tired little skeleton looked up at Gaster, one blue eye glowing, both sockets circled in darkness. It looked like Sans hadn’t slept since he’d been dumped here, and he swayed where he stood as if the chilling breeze was nearly enough to knock him over. He looked smaller than ever, even his constant grin appearing exhausted.

The scientist shut his mouth on an apology that tried to fall out of his mouth and he stepped back, wringing his hands together. As Gaster stepped aside, the Royal Guard and human spotted the stout skeleton in the doorway at the same time and the human scrambled to their feet.

All went silent and the wind dropped to a shifting breeze as the human’s eyes focused on the aqua-colored soul in Sans’ hands. No words needed to be spoken; the brave child recognized their friend on sight. Their eyes widened and met Sans’, their pink-gloved hands slowly beginning to tremor with rage. Then, the orange aura of their soul blazed brighter and they hurled themselves towards Sans with an unrestrained screech of wrath.

“No!” Gaster couldn’t keep the exclamation in and he positioned himself directly in the human’s path, blocking their way. “Not him,” he growled, setting his legs shoulder width apart and puffing out his chest. “You wish to hurt someone? Strike me. Not him.”

“ _You_ didn’t kill my friend!” the human shouted, but they swung at Gaster nonetheless; hard, with a practiced chop to the ribs that drove the breath out of him. “Get out of my way! I’ll ki-”

The human never got to finish their sentence - they were cut off by a loud _ping_ as their soul turned deep blue and they were thrown skywards, as if gravity had changed for them. Gaster bent his neck back and watched them fly upwards before looking over his shoulder at Sans, his pupils focusing on the boy's skyward-held hand.

“heya. i got a question. whyd you throw yourself in front of me like that?” the little skeleton asked, one blue eye still fixed on the human as he held one hand over his head. “nah, i know. it’s ‘cuz you knew you could take the hit, right? i know whats goin’ on here.”

Did he mean... ? Gaster searched Sans’ eyes for any sign of the things that should have been there; fear, hatred… but he just kept up the same weary grin, like a mask.

“huh. do i have somethin’ in my teeth? you sure look uncomfortable about somethin,” Sans commented, looking up at the cave ceiling as the human collided with it. Then, he let the hand over his head drop and the distant scream of the falling human reached Gaster’s ears.

The trio of monsters looked upwards as the human fell, poised to react; the moment the child hit the ground, the Royal Guard launched what would be the final attack. Gaster closed his eyes, feeling his bones rattle with anger; then, he swung to face Sans.

“Why would you do that?” he demanded, pointing a finger at the human lying still in the snow. “Why did you do _this!?_ ” he added, pointing now at the soul Sans held in his hands.

“theyre our _enemy,”_ Sans didn’t _quite_ snap the words, but the sharpness of his voice surprised the scientist. It was uncommon for him to feel such strong conviction for anything.

“Not all of them! Not that one!” Gaster shouted; then, realizing the volume of his own voice, he uneasily looked over his shoulder, relieved to see that the Royal Guard was too distracted by the corpse to have paid any attention. He certainly didn’t want to appear as a human sympathizer to someone who was reporting back to Asgore.

“Listen!” Gaster growled, leaning a bit closer. “You cannot judge all humans in one fell swoop - they are not _all_ our enemies. That human, for example-” he pointed back to where the brave child was cradled in the snow, “-would _never_ have harmed anybody if not for _you._ They would have died to prove that. What of the other child? Did they deserve to die?”

Slowly, Sans’ pupil’s dropped to look at the soul resting in his skeletal hands, the corners of his mouth wavering. “i… i dunno, but-”

“I do not wish to hear your excuses,” Gaster interrupted, voice cold. “This is meaningless, but… I… I truly expected better of you.”

Sans’ expression turned bitter and irritated and he glared up at Gaster. “you dont even know me, pal, so dont act like you do,” as he spoke, he blinked a few times as if trying to shake off drowsiness. It seemed as if unleashing his magic had taken a lot out of him, and he didn’t have much to give to begin with.

“Perhaps you should be more mindful of what you spend your energy on,” Gaster mumbled, avoiding Sans’ eyes. “If that human had hit you even once, you…” he trailed off, feeling a lump form in his throat. “Well, you already know, yes?” he finished.

Neither of the skeletons said a word for a few moments, then Gaster stepped off the porch so that his height was more or less equal to Sans’, and he studied the boy’s eyes briefly.

“You know who I am, do you not?”

“yeah, 'course i do. the “great” Gaster, Royal Scientist, Asgore’s right-hand skell’. not to mention, a mass murderer,” Sans spoke sourly, glowering away. "yet youre lecturing  _me_ like youre above concequences or somethin."

“Yes, well… admittedly, I could think of many more deserving of the title of “great”...” Gaster mumbled, feeling oddly insecure at the criticism. “However. That is besides the point. I can tell that you are very clever, Sans - even if you do not see it yourself. So, certainly you understand that if a deed gives _me_ pause, it should stop you in your tracks.”  
He spoke patiently, soothed by reminders of the countless times he had used this voice to explain things to his assistant. But, this time, he hoped to teach the boy something “right.”

“These were children with homes to return to. Families. Together, with the power of both their souls, they could have left the underground peacefully. I wish for you to consider that if ever you see a human again,” he studied Sans as he spoke, but it was difficult to tell if he was even listening as he stared coolly through the scientist.

“....Now. If you will hand the human soul over to me, I will-” Gaster began, but cut himself off as the other skeleton pulled the soul closer to his chest, glaring.

“nice try, bud, but i know Asgore didnt send _you_ to get it. how did i know? ‘cuz the one im supposed to give it to is standing right there,” he pointed at the Royal Guard that had originally attacked the orange-souled human, giving his skull a dismissive shake.

Frowning, Gaster glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the scaley warrior approaching, holding the orange soul in her webbed hands while her crimson eyes gleamed triumphantly. Feeling sick to his soul, the royal scientist stepped aside from Sans.

Admitting defeat, Gaster swiftly decided that he had no desire to further his role in this disturbing unfolding of events. He began charting his escape back to Grillby’s. As he walked around behind the Royal guard, though, he found that his focus was locked on Sans’ face as his expression changed to show genuine emotion for the first time since he had opened the door.

Bleak remorse brought blue tears to the boy's eyes as the human soul in his hands began to glow brighter at the Royal Guard's approach, shedding pale sky-colored light across the snow. It took Gaster a moment to realize what it was doing, but pity bit down hard on him as he did.

He leaned forward to watch the Royal Guard as she climbed up the porch stairs to Sans’ side, her eyes fixed curiously on the other soul as it shone bright.

“Why’s it doing that?” she demanded. Sans didn’t respond, and for the briefest moment the scientist managed to fool himself into thinking the boy hadn’t made the connection.

Then, the orange soul lit up like a leaping flame in response to its partner, and the lights in Sans’ eyes vanished. Somewhere deep in his own soul where he dared not venture, Gaster felt something stirring. He clenched his hands, pushed it down.

“I hope that you do not forget what I said, Sans,” he said swiftly, turning on his heel and rushing away hurriedly. He could not stand to be near these monsters nor their stolen souls any longer. If either of the human slayers called after him, he was unhearing.

By the time Gaster reached Grillby’s bar, he noticed monsters beginning to venture out of their homes, the bar, the schoolhouse. By the time he entered Grillby’s, it was packed full of monsters, some crowded around the door all trying to leave at once, some lined up to use the phone in the kitchen, some ordering drinks from Grillby.

Celebrating that the crisis had passed, contacting loved ones, or venturing outside to find them. Yet among the crowd of excited and anxious faces, Gaster failed to find the one that he was seeking. _No,_ he thought, feeling his bones turn cold.

Shoving through the crowd and pushing aside a monster that was in the middle of writing down an order of drinks for Grillby to read, Gaster grabbed a handful of Grillby’s vest and yanked him halfway over the counter. “Where is she?” he hissed.

Grillby braced both his arms against the counter in attempt to resist the pull, letting out an audible puff of startled air. After a moment to realize what he was doing, Gaster let his hand open and brushed it down Grillby’s vest a few times in attempt to smooth out the wrinkles from his bony vicegrip.

 _‘She’s safe,’_ the bartender signed shakily. _‘She wanted to go back to the Ruins once you left,_ ’ he added, turning his face away from Gaster and sighing; smoke coiled from his mouth. _‘No stopping her,’_ he finished, shrinking away from the skeleton as if expecting a violent response.

Seeing the man flinch away like this, Gaster’s concern for Ilea was pushed onto the back burner of his mind for a moment. _‘I didn’t mean to get so_ heated _,’_ he signed, then paused long enough to put a hand over his soul and stare into Grillby’s spectacles, ‘ _but she is important. I need her for my work. Please forget how I’ve behaved today.’_

 _‘I’m not going to forget,’_ the flame monster responded, seeming to ignore Gaster’s fire-themed pun, _‘but I’d consider forgiving you if you’d just apologize.’_

Though surprised by Grillby’s willingness to excuse his actions, Gaster supposed that the other was accustomed to his erratic and often uncaring behavior. The scientist found that he didn’t have to search for remorse; it bubbled up quickly and Gaster found himself closing his sockets, whispering aloud, “I _am_ sorry,” as he signed it. When he opened his eyes a moment later, Grillby’s red mouth was smirking confidently.

Before he could ask, Grillby smiled a little wider, undoubtedly amused by the confusion on the skeleton's face. _‘You’ve never apologized to me before, you know, even though you’ve always been inconsiderate,’_ he pointed out in explanation before a thoughtful look took him over and he tipped his head to the side. _‘Even though they keep running off, these new friends of yours seem to be doing your old soul some good._ ’

Even though he knew better, Gaster couldn’t help but chuckle. "Friends"…? If Grillby knew the truth about Ilea - about Shade, too - would he still be smiling? _Not a chance,_ he answered his own question silently, looking away from Grillby with a frown. How could he have beguiled the clever bartender so thoroughly that he might feel anything but disgust towards him?

 _‘Well?’_ Grillby motioned after a few moments, crossing his arms over his chest and jerking his head towards the door. He didn’t have to do more than that - the meaning was clear: “Aren’t you going to go after her?”

This had all become a foolish charade. But deception was first nature; Gaster felt nothing but a desire to carry the lie. “Yes, of course,” he responded aloud, looking into the lenses of Grillby’s glasses with fondness all too easily feigned.

“I wanted to make sure that we are okay, first,” he lied, looking away coyly.

 _‘We?’_ Grillby repeated, tipping his head to the side skeptically.

Gaster froze, realizing that he had thrown himself into the lie too eagerly; but, Grillby’s furrowed brows soon softened and he shook his head mildly.

 _‘Don’t fake it for my sake, Doctor, I know there’s never going to be a “we” here,’_ he signed. Gaster found himself waiting for a sign of negative emotion, but Grillby was unreadable.

The scientist considered his options for a moment; if he wanted to commit to the fallacy, he might find that he could tempt legitimate emotions from Grillby. However, that wasn’t something that he desired. But, recollection of their conversation when he’d been here last clamoured for attention, and he stared into the lenses of Grillby's glasses for a few lengthy seconds, somehow certain that he was thinking of the same exchange.

 _‘I believe I will see you again soon,’_ Gaster signed to the bartender, unable to return his gaze any longer for fear of escalating the situation in front of many monsters. Looking over his shoulder, all kindness and warmth instantly vanished from his face and the crowd behind him, realizing that he’d turned around, shuffled messily to make a pathway. Ignoring each individual with the same disregard, he strode to the door and left the crowded restaurant behind.

The town was alive once more when he stepped outside, and he promptly found himself straining to see if Sans was still outside, or if the Royal Guard had left. Giving up on seeing so far away, he approached the house with caution and peered into the window on the front door briefly.

The lights were off and nothing seemed to move within - perhaps Sans was getting some sorely needed rest after fighting two humans so close together. Briefly, Gaster wondered: how, with the weakness of his soul, had the boy managed to win...?

Swiftly, though, his mind turned back to Ilea, bringing with it a sour churning in his abdomen. Truthfully, it was no surprise to him that she’d fled back to Toriel, although he had expected for her to endure at least one experiment first.  But it didn’t matter; in fact, a bittersweet gladness washed over him.

If the girl had come with him, Toriel would never have been able to protect her again. Now, she could stay safe away from him, locked in the Ruins - it was what was best for both of the women he cared about so inescapably and inexplicably.

It was strange; nothing that had happened that day had turned out in his favour, yet he was relieved. He attempted to push away any seeds of resentment that might sprout up and thought ahead.

To get back to the Lab, he knew that he would have to wait for quite some time for the Riverperson; with such an exciting development having just passed, monsters would be buzzing about like flies, trying to spread the word as quickly as possible. And, although Gaster could claim to be on royal business and skip the queue altogether, the prospect of socialization was revolting at the moment.

So, it would be the long way back, then. Fine by him - he had much to think about, and a long walk would help his thoughts flow. Better than pacing around a dusty lab.


	13. Fallen Angel

 

“Entry four, continued. For brevity's sake, I will condense all of my DT-related experiences into this entry as best I am able. I have prepared the second injection, reduced by ten percent of the previous dose. I expect results to be at least somewhat less jarring this time - we shall see soon.”

Gaster’s rattling skeletal hands paused the recording and he set it aside, picking up the syringe next to it. Truthfully, with the curiosity he’d felt initially now satiated - and knowing how the DT had affected him the first time - he was terrified, and little else. Yet he knew better than to think quitting was an option he’d settle for. Already, he faced innumerable drawbacks as a result of his own weakness.

If he hadn’t been so weak, they would not be trapped beneath the mountain at all. If he had managed to kill even a single human and absorb their soul…

Growling deep in his throat and shaking off the looming thoughts, Gaster yanked his turtleneck over his head and tossed it into his overflowing laundry hamper. Turning the rage he felt in that moment inward on himself, he jabbed the needle between his third and fourth rib. Pain was the only indication that he’d hit his mark, as he couldn’t find it in him to look down at his own soul.

It should be stained red by now.

Clenching shut his jaw tightly, he willed himself to push down the plunger. When it was fully depressed, he pulled the needlepoint from his soul and checked the reservoir, uncertain. He had expected a reduced reaction - not no reaction at all.

 _Have I reduced the dosage too much? Has my soul built up a tolerance already?_ While Gaster fretted over whether or not he should immediately take a trip down to the Underlab to retrieve more DT, he paced his bedroom slowly.

Noting that he still felt weak from his last dose, he thought better of it. It was best to wait. He could always readjust the dosage and be back on track the next day. It wouldn’t help the Underground much in the long run if he ended up getting himself killed, though it’d be happy news to an ever-growing number of monsters. Including, it seemed recently, himself.

Brushing off the self-loathing thoughts with a groan of disgust, Gaster tossed the used needle on his bedside table and let himself fall backwards into his bed so that he lay across it with his feet still on the floor. It had been a long and taxing day - too much excitement for his old bones.

Yawning hugely, Gaster kicked off his shoes, then stood up long enough to unbutton his pants and let them drop, kicking them over to the hamper. Then, he dropped back onto his bed and grasped the corner of a sheet, rolling over once so that he was bundled tightly in the fabric.

Normally sleep would elude him for hours when he first lay down, but that evening it found him quickly with a weighty pitch-black embrace. When he opened his sockets again, he was floating in empty nothingness that seemed to stretch forever in all directions. Nothing new. Deciding that he wasn’t in the mood to play into his nightmare’s hands, he closed his eyes again and waited to wake up.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the scientist found himself looking into the darkness once more, searching for any lapse, until his sockets ached. He felt his arms beginning to move on their own until his hands were raised in front of his face and he couldn’t avoid looking. Unusually, they appeared neither dusty nor bloody as they normally did in his subconscious excursions into darkness.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he said aloud, and his hands dropped back to his sides. As his voice echoed away, he recalled the dead silence of the place and groaned uneasily. It’d be enough to drive him mad, were it real. Though, some nights his body ran through the endless nothing long enough that he feared it had become his reality.

“You don’t know _what’s_ real.”

A voice echoed from nowhere and Gaster swung around in a full circle, seeking out the source. Barring the hallucination-fueled dream in which Ilea had appeared, no other creature ever appeared here. But it most certainly wasn’t Ilea’s voice; it was fiercer, smaller.

“Maybe out there is a dream, and this is where you really are.”

“Bold words for someone who hides their face!” Gaster called back to the emptiness in response, but it seemed silence had returned. Letting out a small _hmph_ of disapproval, the scientist started walking, hoping to pass the time until he woke up more quickly.

“Or will you be falling asleep?” someone tittered mischievously, sounding closer than before. Stopping in midstep, Gaster clenched his fists.

  
“Show your face!” he barked back.

An instant later, he almost stumbled back in shock as a red soul popped up out of nowhere, swooping in close.

“You see why I can’t do that now, don’t you, Gaster?” the soul gleamed brighter as it… spoke? “Don’t be stupid, souls can’t talk! You’re hearing me in your head. And I can hear you.”

Blinking a few times in disbelief, he swiped out a hand in attempt to catch the soul, but it passed through harmlessly.

“I guess it wasn’t obvious enough. I’m not _really_  here. But I’m not exactly a dream, either, so,” the voice hesitated again, then a giggle echoed around the empty space, “well? What am I? I’ll give you three guesses!”

“Chara,” the scientist rasped, feeling his throat tighten. “You are dead. Your soul rests in the Ruins. I saw your corpse with my own eyes, mingling with the dust and the flowers.”

“Poetic, huh?” it said, floating closer to Gaster’s face. “Want to hear something _not_ -so-poetic?” their voice started out cheerful and childlike, but distorted and droned deeper as they went on:

“I’m stuck here! My soul is still in the physical realm, but I’m dead, so I’m stuck here! In the Void!” Laughter rang out from all directions, resonating away. He knew that he had heard it before, but before he could dwell on it, their words flowed on, bubbling with twisted glee.

“So? Why do you think _you’re_ here? How can you be alive, yet find yourself in the Void every time you shut your poor, tired sockets? You think that there must be some logical explanation… so, three guesses!”

“I am only dreaming,” the skeleton growled, although the sinking dread in his chest begged to differ. “I am not going to play your game, Chara. Although, I suppose that his is actually my own game, is it not?”

The soul sank down slightly as if disappointed, then drifted a little farther away. “I always knew you’d be boring,” they sighed drolly.

Deciding not to respond, Gaster pivoted to turn away from the soul to stare off into eternity. The human and the skeleton were both silent for a few minutes, then a question dawned on Gaster suddenly.

“If what you say is true, where are the other souls? They should be here by now.”

“Are you stupid?” the soul mused aloud before sighing heavily, “You know that the Void is infinite. Even if there were a _million_ souls trapped here, the odds of-”

A loud ringing noise cut off their voice, and a moment later the soul began to fade away. Gaster was about to demand answers about the sound, but the sensation of falling sucked away his breath and an instant later he awoke after hitting the floor next to his bed with a hefty _thump_.

Now awake - though very groggy - Gaster recognized the sound as a motion alarm set off by somebody trespassing in the Lab before he’d disabled the alarm for the day. Fighting free of the sweaty sheet that had somehow wound up wrapped around his spine several times, he finally clambered to his feet.

He spent a moment looking for the loafers he’d kicked off before climbing into bed, but they were nowhere to be found - likely swept under the bed by his fight with the sheet. Sighing heavily, he slipped his feet into a pair of slippers that he had no memory of obtaining instead. On the way out of his room, he grabbed a robe to wrap around his bare bones.

By the time he reached the front room, Gaster was aware that something wasn’t quite right. The world felt odd; faraway. For a moment, he wondered if he was actually still asleep, but he didn’t dream often - at least, not like this. Trying his best to tighten his grasp on reality, he scanned the dim room for intruders, but every shadow looked like a monster.

Clutching at the belt of his robe, which he’d tied hastily on his walk from the bedroom, he rushed over to the terminal at the long-purposeless receptionist desk to silence the alarm. Perhaps, he thought, it had been set off by a monster that wasn’t intelligent enough to realize they’d wandered in, and they were roaming the halls aimlessly. It had happened before, and it was little more than a minor inconvenience to locate them and usher them out. There wasn’t much harm that a monster could do in the Upperlab, after all.

Massaging a temple with his fingertips, he turned off the alarm and brought the lights up from their dim “nighttime” mode. Then, he checked the security system to see which room had detected movement last, but aside from the sensors tripped on his way there, the Lab had been still all night.

Either the trespasser had retreated the way they’d come in after the sound of alarms, or… Gaster turned his back on the computer to look over the room again now that it was fully lit, taking on a defensive stance as if expecting an attack.

“Whoa, hey, it’s you! From Snowdin!”

Of all the monsters he’d expected, _she_ certainly wasn’t on the list. The Royal Guard was almost unrecognizable currently, clad in a long, flowing floral-patterned dress rather than a full suit of armor; it was the tendril on her head, flowing freely like it had in battle, that caused Gaster to recognize the guard immediately. Snapping his gaping jaw shut, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked her up and down.

Long iridescent fins spread elegantly from her elbows and sprang gracefully from her backless dress, sparkling gold and magenta; her scales scattered a myriad of blue across the tile and walls. Unexpectedly, the skeleton found it difficult to catch his breath; feeling oddly intimidated, he looked down at the floor.

“What are you doing here?” he managed to sound calm, despite the unease eating at him.

“Better question: what the hell!? You could’ve taken care of that human like _that!”_ she snapped her fingers in emphasis, advancing closer and grinning toothily. “Man, if I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have been so rude! I’ve heard _so many_ stories about how you kick ass, you know! So, I gotta ask, why’d you just stand there and watch?”

She spoke with an excited passion that made her words difficult to follow, gesturing enthusiastically and scattering light from her fins. Gaster only watched for a while, stupefied into silence, until he realized that she was waiting for a response. Avoiding her eyes, he shrugged his arms helplessly.

“Er… would you believe me if I said that I have changed my ways?” he offered weakly; even he wasn’t sure if it was an attempt at a joke. He looked at the intruder’s confused expression for a few seconds before shaking his head, letting his guard down and his shoulders slump. “I did not feel it right to take the life of a helpless child. Standing by was no better - I am well aware of that. However, given the chance, I do not believe I would change what I have done. Would you?”

The warrior’s eyes widened with disbelief for a moment before she laughed loudly, throwing her head back. “Are you KIDDING? We got TWO human souls out of it! The only thing that could have made it any better was if I’d gotten to kill them both myself, instead of having to rely on a civilian.”

“Do you not feel even a shred of guilt?” Gaster burst out in an icily cold voice, flashing from sullenness to anger in an instant. He stepped towards the Royal Guard, glowering down at her with empty sockets. She only looked up at him, belligerent; rage washed up in Gaster’s soul.

“You are a fool. Do you think that I have done what I have done for the sake of boasting or amusement? You take so much pride in “saving the world of monsters,” but you are only serving Asgore’s cowardice, while I…. While I slave to find a better way!”

The Royal Guard’s expression gradually became solemn as Gaster spoke, never looking away from his eyes. After a second’s pause to make sure he was done, she shook her head from side to side.

“I don’t care about your martyrdom. So what if we kill seven of them? They’ve killed _thousands_ of us. They deserve every loss - and all the grief, too. I’ll do _whatever_ it takes to get to the surface and make it a safe place, not just for my daughter, but for every monster! If that means destroying every human out there, then - fine! I’ll do it!”

A shred of memory popped up uninvited in Gaster’s head; he’d once given a similar spiel, proclaiming that he’d take a soul and stop the humans. “And who will tell you when you are done?” he asked, echoing Toriel’s response from long ago. Ignoring the ache in his chest cavity, he trained a glare on the guard. “When you are lost to the violence, who will stop you? Your daughter, whom you love so dearly, will be the child of a slaughterer. How will you keep her safe from yourself?”

“You’re a damn hypocrite,” the Royal Guard exclaimed fiercely, flaring her gills and glowering at him. “Well, I don’t care! Preach all you want - I’m the head of the Royal Guard, and that means I’m in charge of you, so I’m going to do what I came here to do! Give me the soul chambers now.”

He was still floundering for words to make the monster before him see the error of her ways when she made the demand, and he stared at her open-mouthed with surprise, processing.

“Asgore had given me one week to complete the chambers, and it has been a mere three days,” he said tautly after a moment, crossing his arms over his chest. “Even if they _were_ complete, I would not give them to you for it is not what I agreed upon. You may return in four days and I will-”

“Listen, you egghead, things just changed!” she interrupted. “We have _two_ human souls that might not last the rest of the week on their own, and there is NO way I’m gonna let them slip through our fingers! So, hand over however many you have done, and I’ll be back for the rest… Asgore might not be happy I took this into my own hands at first, but it’s for the best!”

Something clicked in Gaster’s mind simultaneously as something wailed out in his soul;  his emotions dullened and his mind sharpened.

“Asgore does not know that you are here?”

“Oh, like YOU’VE never done anything behind your king’s back!” she snapped, impatient, then grinned widely, “besides, I wanted to surprise him with the souls! He’s gonna be so proud.”

“Do you have them now? The souls?” he asked numbly.

“Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to bring them here? No way. They’re in the castle. Asgore will find them soon - I didn’t want to wake him with the news last night. He’s been so tired lately, training the guards and all,” the Royal Guard said, then narrowed her eyes at Gaster. He could tell that she was becoming suspicious and let his shoulders slump as if disappointed and defeated by her guile.

“I see. Well, I agree with you on one matter - we cannot allow those souls to go to waste, though they would be of more use in my hands. For that reason alone, I will ignore your rudeness and disrespect,” Gaster sighed, looking down at his slippers. “I will go get the chambers now.”

“How do I know you won’t try to sneak off to the castle out the back door?” she growled, a crimson gleam appearing in her eyes.

“Very clever,” he commented in response. _Though not clever enough,_ his mind added silently and he nodded curtly. “You are correct to be suspicious of me, young one. We are not all that different, after all - we are both willing to commit atrocities to achieve our goals.”

“Except that you’ve already done the unthinkable,” she muttered. Gaster wondered briefly whether she was talking about his experiments on his own kind, or human souls long ago.

“As have you… child murderer,” his voice was quiet and emotionless. He didn’t observe her reaction; he wasn’t interested. “Come now. I will take you to the chambers,” his voice sharpened now and he led the way briskly down the halls, setting a pace that ensured the stranger had little time to get her bearings and remember the way out. Neither spoke, until they reached the dead-end hall with the sliding wall panel  that disguised the elevator that would take them down to the Underlab.

Once he’d pushed back the panel and slid it open, he stepped in and quickly typed his passcode before the guard could follow. She hesitated a moment longer, meeting Gaster’s expectant gaze before taking in a deep breath and stepping in beside him.

“Why are we going further down?” she wondered once they began to descend.

“There are many projects of mine that could be potentially hazardous, even catastrophic, in the wrong hands. Even a monster that does not intend to cause harm could do so unintentionally - so, I have taken additional precautions to ensure that they are kept safe,” the scientist responded absentmindedly, pacing the small space of the elevator and filling the air with the muffled rustling of slippers on tile.

“For some reason, I imagined you’d be an early morning person, not still asleep past when the morning watch went out,” she commented, smiling snidely at his houserobe.

“Oh, I am certainly a morning person. And a night person. I scarcely sleep. You happened to drop by while I am experimenting with… uhm… a sleep assistance drug. I suppose it works,” though he was unsure why he was making small talk with the trespasser, a hint of humor crept into his voice. He supposed it couldn’t hurt - so long as he only filled her with lies.

After all, the pieces had already fallen into place with ease - everything else was merely for his own entertainment.

“Do you usually experiment on yourself?” she asked nervously.

“Frequently. It should not surprise you to know that I rarely have volunteers. Besides, I am more resilient than most, and although it would affect our future, few would miss me if I…” he found himself speaking quite quietly all of a sudden, and wound up not finishing his sentence.

“You’re… kinda sad, you know?”

Elevators were not the ideal setting for personal conversations with strangers, Gaster realized, reminding himself to refrain from oversharing in tight spaces in the future.

“Ha. Here I am baring my soul to you, and I do not even know your name. What… is your name, miss?” Gaster looked sidelong at the captain, watching her run her hand along the fin on her opposite arm, frowning uncomfortably at the floor.

“Angel. My name’s Angel,” she replied stiffly, lifting her head to look Gaster in the sockets. Expectant.

“Angel?” Gaster repeated, surprised at the wonder in his own voice.

“Yeah. Asgore reacted the same way - all you crusty old monsters do. But I’m not part of some ancient prophecy. I’m just me,” she spoke more quietly than he had heard her speak before, holding Gaster’s intent gaze steadily.

“But still, you lived on the surface - you have seen it,” Gaster pointed out, reading Angel’s expression as her face scrunched up in frustration. “I suppose that Asgore thought you might be the key to our freedom, hm? He always did cling to old stories.”

The scaled captain sighed loudly, narrowing her eyes. “I’ve been trying to tell myself he trained me because he saw my potential, but between you and Gerson, you’ve managed to make it pretty clear that I’m just some false hope. But it doesn’t matter. I’m still gonna make a difference, even if people only see me as something I’m not.”

Gaster pushed down his admiration for her certainty.

“Don’t get in my way, okay? You might be strong, but I’m a lot more determined.”

He looked over at Angel, puzzled by the surety in her voice. A warning? Gaster curled one hand into a fist, turning his back on her as the elevator door slid open. _She knows,_ he realized, taking a moment to open his senses to any incoming magic attacks; but Angel only stepped around him, pushing her way out of the elevator.

Wasting no time, he moved swiftly to the main terminal of the Underlab and unlocked one of the electronically sealed doors to one of many holding rooms in the underground facility. Angel paced, taut with anticipation.

Gaster wondered inwardly why she wasn’t trying to surprise him with an attack; she didn’t stand a chance of winning either way - Gaster knew that - but it seemed an obvious choice. Saying nothing, he turned and started off down the hallway to his left. Angel hurried after him, her flippers slapping loudly on the stone floor while his own feet seemed to fall noiselessly.

When they reached the door and both stopped, Angel looked both ways down the long corridor. For a place to hide? For a weapon? He had no way of knowing for certain. He pushed open the door to the clean white-painted room, containing only a bedframe with a mattress stripped of any bedding, as well as a table-and-chair set with matching chipped paint.

“So. When did you decide you’re gonna try trapping me down here, and why?” Angel asked coolly, stepping back a few paces from the door.

 _Ah. So, she was waiting to be certain before she assaulted the Royal Scientist. Honorable. Though it did not serve her well,_ Gaster observed to himself, tucking his hands behind his tailbone. “Shortly after you revealed to me how simple it would be to frame the humans for your death,” Gaster responded calmly.

“ _Why_?” Angel repeated, her face hardening with righteous fury.

Ignoring her question, Gaster looked into the holding room. “Even if you somehow manage to defeat me, you will never see the Underground again. The elevator will lock you out after you enter the passcode incorrectly - and after five consecutive incorrect entries, the power will be cut off to the air vents. You would then die alone in the dark, suffocating. For nothing.”

“The most courageous thing that you could do is give up now without a fight,” he concluded, looking back to Angel.

“Do you really think you’re going to get away with this?” Angel snarled.

“Of course. I have _everything._ A cause of death - humans. An alibi - I was here, working away at the soul chambers. Motive? As far as the Underground knows, we have never even met,” he took in the growing horror on her face as he spoke, concluding with the tiniest of smirks.

“WHY?” Angel shouted, baring her needlelike fangs. “Tell me WHY!”

The scientist shrugged his shoulders, his face reverting to emotionlessness, muttered, “because I have to.”

“You’re going to have to kill me before I let you lock me up! And, well.... I’m not going to lose.” The Royal Captain sounded so sure of herself that Gaster hesitated, uneasy.

“Why are you so confident that you can defeat me? I have killed hundreds of monsters before you,” he wondered aloud.

“Because you’re wearing a god damn robe and slippers!” Angel crowed, springing forward and summoning up a flurry of attacks.

Gaster’s sockets emptied out and he took a deep breath, listening to the still air. There was no wind howling in this crypt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throwing out a preemptive **non-con** warning for the next chapter. It's completely skippable as far as the plot goes.


	14. darker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Scowly murderface strikes again

Gaster had no intentions to fight Angel from the beginning; so, the battle was over before it could even start. In fact, “battle” was an inaccurate term. Rather than dancing around her swarm of attacks, Gaster stood strong against them and let them fall on him while he summoned up a swarm of phantom hands. While she was focused on seeing the damage she’d done, the hands seized her and dragged her into the holding room.

With a nonchalant gesture, Gaster guided a pair of hands to the pair of shackles attached to the wall and closed them around Angel’s wrists, rendering her immobile. Then, he stepped into the room and watched her struggle wildly against her restraints. 

“Imagine how those humans must have felt; cornered in a strange place, confronted by someone in power, given no opportunity to flee, helpless because they could not fight…” the scientist listened to his own voice as words escaped him, unsure whether or not he liked the stony tone. From behind him, another swimming bullet whizzed forward in attempt to ambush him, but a magical hand absorbed the blow with no need for the skeleton to turn around.

“I’m gonna get free, you know,” Angel snarled, “and I’m  _ over  _ killing you. I’ll MAKE you tell me the passcode, and I’ll make you regret this! I’ll-”

Gaster stopped listening to her empty threats, watching her mouth move instead. After a few minutes, he became aware that his bones were rattling together as he trembled. Slowly, he lifted one of his hands to look at it, watching it shake slightly. Then he looked over at Angel again, letting his hand drop.

Hollow, he turned his back and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Almost immediately, his knees weakened beneath him and he sank down to the floor outside the door, hugging his arms around his legs. He could hear the bedframe rattle while Angel thrashed for freedom, grunting from exertion. 

He knew that a monster couldn’t overpower physical restraints that way; and her magic would take eons to eat through steel. Soon, he was counting the minutes that she fought to get free. Her attempts came in fierce bursts at first, gradually becoming sporadic and weak until, at last, they stopped altogether. One hour. Determined, indeed.

There was no satisfaction in him, Gaster realized; not an ounce. All the pieces had fallen together so easily, but he didn’t feel anything at all in that moment - not relief, not guilt, not triumph. Nothing. It would’ve been easy for him to remain unmoving, curled up outside of Angel’s door for much longer, but he drove himself into motion once he was certain the royal captain had given up on her struggles.

Pushing himself slowly to his feet, he hobbled stiffly down the hallway, his joints practically immobile from sitting in the same position on the cold stone floor for such a long time.

The elevator up from the Underlab felt longer and quieter than ever before; Gaster distracted himself by running his fingers up and down the split bone beneath his eye until it tingled numbly.

When the lift reached the Upperlab, he headed to his room and slipped off his robe, hanging it back up on the back of his door. When he reached his arms over his head in attempt to stretch the stiffness out of his bones, a hot, sharp pain flared up in his ribcage.

Gasping sharply at the pain, he clutched his sternum in shock. Almost as if barely daring to, he slowly looked down at his ribcage to inspect the source of the pain. Tiny hairline fractures spread from one dominant crack across his lowest rib where the orange-souled child had struck him, and a large area around the injury was bruised dark purple. His breath began to shake and he hurried into the bathroom, finding the small kit of medical supplies beneath his sink to wrap the bone tightly.

By the time Gaster had returned to his room and dressed himself in a button up rather than something that he would have to pull over his head and clean pants and his shoes from the previous day, he was still shaking slightly. Grabbing a labcoat from his closet, he pulled it onto his shoulders, hugging it around himself like a security blanket.

Taking proper time to treat his bone break and rest was the best course of action, he knew, but… grimacing, Gaster opened the drawer in his bedside table and retrieved a bottle of pills, swallowing two back and placing it atop the table.Then, he pushed on with his tasks.

When he was done locating the soul monitor he’d need for Angel’s future experiments, he mentally prepared himself for his next detour. He had tried to avoid going near the room he’d left the magic suppressor in for the last several months, but when he entered it now he kept his eyes firmly focused on his goal. Picking up the machine that had long since run out of battery power, he clutched it to his chest, practically running back to the door and closing it behind him.

Finally, he tracked down a small generator that would keep the magic inhibitor running indefinitely and a metal cage to bolt over it that would keep Angel away from the machine; piling everything he’d gathered into a cart, he beelined back to the Underlab elevator and headed down. By the time he returned to Angel’s room and entered the unlocked door, it had been two hours since she had been left there.

It was unclear if she had fallen unconscious in that period of time, but the moment Gaster opened the door, he found himself having to sidestep from a fish-shaped bullet she summoned up and sent firing at him. It seemed she could only send her attacks in a straight line, he realized, which scarcely made her a threat at all. 

“Please. I am already in pain from protecting the civilian in Snowdin from that human,” the skeleton lamented in a sarcastically suffering voice.

“Wish they’d killed you,” Angel muttered darkly.

_ As do I,  _ he didn’t say, pretending to ignore her as he knelt in the corner of the room and hooked up the magic inhibitor to the generator, bolting the metal cage down around it and closing it, attaching a padlock to the side of the cage that swung open. It wasn’t time to lock the padlock nor activate it just yet - he would likely need magic for the next task.

That done, Gaster put his hand on the chair next to him and used it to assist himself back to his feet, stifling an agitated sigh at the fact his bones didn’t seem keen to give him a break from stiffness. Then, he turned to Angel, holding her glowering gaze for what felt like several  minutes before looking away with a smirk. 

“I swear I’m gonna pound that smug look right off your face,” Angel burst out, jerking both arms against the shackles, “I’m gonna turn you to DUST!”

“There is a queue for that,” he responded, crossing the room to the cart and reaching into the bottom of it for a tiny chip-like device no bigger than the tip of his index finger. “By the time it is your turn to exact revenge, there likely will not be anything left of me to take your anger out, my dear,” he went on, pinching the chip between his finger and thumb.

“You’re so damn  _ arrogant, _ ” the captain whispered in a voice that trembled with rage, “so self-important. Is there even a part of you that sees that?”

Gaster had begun to walk towards Angel, but his feet faltered for a moment and he met her eyes, cringing. “Do you need an answer?” he asked, genuinely unsure whether or not it was meant to be a rhetorical question.

“Do you  _ have  _ one?”

The skeleton carried his bones across the room and sat heavily at the foot of Angel’s bed, staring at the wall opposite him. Parting his fingers, he let the chip fall into his palm and sighed heavily. “I do not know which part of me is wrong, nor which part of me sees clearly. If I were to abandon what I have been and be compassionate above all else.. If I let sympathy drive me from here on out…”

“I would go nowhere,” he finished firmly after a brief pause in which he stared at the chip in his hand. Then, he turned his neck to face Angel, inspecting her glare. “But that does not mean that I am without remorse. If only I were - it would make my job simpler. However, it is guilt that keeps me moving forward. My guilt… for that human I could not save yesterday, for mutilating a soul that was once a beacon of the Underground’s hope - Chara’s soul… my guilt for Sans…”

Angel’s eyes widened as she listened to the scientist go on, his voice growing heavy and unbalanced with emotion.

“It is guilt that pushes me onwards, ensures that this will not be for naught in the end,” he concluded after a moment to regain his composure.

“You don’t actually expect me to feel bad for you, do you?” Angel sneered, leaping back to ferocity in an instant. “Because that’s NEVER happening.”

“Goodness, no,” the scientist almost laughed the words out, darkening as he rounded on Angel. “Even if for a moment you felt pity, you will despise me once more when I am done.”

“What are you-?” Angel demanded, cutting off as Gaster reached a hand towards her. “DON’T touch me,” she barked, bucking her legs at him as she sat up, pulling away until she was against the wall, glowering. Gaster remained silent, inching slightly closer, though ensuring that he was still out of range of a kick.

“I need to attach a monitor to your soul,” he said flatly, holding his hand out to show her the chip. “It will relay data to the mainframe, as well as preventing your soul from retreating into your bod-”

Before he could finish his monotone explanation, Angel’s leg jerked up and kicked Gaster’s open hand, knocking the chip flying across the room. He pulled the hand sharply back to himself, holding it with the other, startled.

“You’re NOT touching my soul,” she hissed as he stood up to retrieve the chip. “Never. I won’t let anyone do that to me again. I will  _ make  _ you kill me before I let this happen.”

Gaster scanned the floor for the chip before standing to retrieve it, holding it close to his face to check for any physical damage, but a small flight across the room wasn’t enough to cause any. After a moment to let Angel’s words sink in, he turned around to face her.

Shambling rather slowly and unnaturally, Gaster returned to the edge of Angel’s bed and stared hollowly into her fearful gaze. He searched for something - anything - to spur or deter him, but found nothing within himself but a sinking, disquiet darkness crawling out from his soul.

“Would that be a fate worse than death?” his voice asked without his permission and he put a hand on the edge of the bed, staring into her eyes. “Do you think I’m interested in your soul that way? Do you think I  _ desire _ it?”

Gaster feigned forward suddenly in a fake lunge, stopping in time to catch Angel’s ankle in his spare hand as she swung a foot at his face. The slickness of her scales caught him off guard and he couldn’t keep a grip, though her heel only grazed his cheek harmlessly. When her other free leg bucked out, he blocked it with his forearm and used the instant that both her legs were drawing back to kick again to move forward, until he knelt on the bed, too close for her to build up any momentum with her legs to strike him.

She used both feet in attempt to push him away, but he remained anchored, watching her face with an expression of fascination. After a moment to process their stalemate, Angel pulled herself closer to the wall, curling against it and glowering at him like a cornered animal.

The skeleton didn’t pause to consider his options; instead, he reached forward and grabbed onto her ankle again, this time compensating for the slippery surface, and yanked the other monster until her body pulled away from the wall, using a quickly conjured hand to shove her back into a lying position.

In an instant he found himself stradling her legs, pelvic bone resting heavily on her as she strained for freedom, gills flaring as she huffed out panicked sobs; tears streamed down her face, pooling in the fins on the sides of her head.

“Tell me,” Gaster whispered, staring at Angel’s face, “did he say he loved you? Did he break you?  Was he the first? Was he the last? Did he father that daughter you love so fiercely? Did he make you want to die?” 

The words were spilling out now until he was breathless, then he leaned his face closer to hers, barely audible as he hissed, “do I make you want to die?”

Angel jerked her head forward, slamming her forehead into his chin hard enough to cause his eyes to flood with tears, then proceeded to thrash fiercely in hopes of throwing him off for the instant that the assault unbalanced him, but he scarcely swayed.

Calmly, Gaster rubbed his chin, blinking away the blurriness in his eyes. “Did you fight him this way? Or did you simply give up? That, I suppose, is what you meant when you said you  _ let  _ it happen. You must have felt so helpless. My poor little Angel.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Angel said through gritted teeth.

Gaster felt the tiniest of smiles cross his face and he extended his hand, hovering it above Angel’s chest. It was faint, but he could feel the power resonating from her soul within her body. “Skeletons are a simple monster; their souls always exposed, like a nerve. Some say that makes them vulnerable. Your soul… I can sense it within your flesh, but I cannot access it without force. I will ask you to give it willingly. Would you?”

“I told you, I’d sooner DIE.” Angel gnashed her teeth, straining against the shackles; Gaster swore that he could hear the wall creak.

“Yes, you did mention that,” he sighed, adjusting his weight atop her, watching the rage fade away from her expression and turn to horror yet again. Clenching his fist above her chest, he channelled magic around her soul and strained back, struggling to pull the soul from her core. It took nearly all the exertion in his body to expose it, and once he had, he could feel her emotions filling the air.

Rage, desperation, fear. Gods, the fear. Somehow, it felt... familiar. Shaking, Gaster cupped a hand around the back of her soul, interrupting the natural pull, as well as her savage struggles. Holding her soul in his hand, he found himself assaulted by images, manifesting at the memories of the last soul he’d held with his own hands. He blinked and for an instant, Angel was no longer the one splayed helpless beneath him, but Sans.

Shutting his eyes tightly, Gaster used instinct and experience alone to maneuver the hooks on the back of the tiny soul monitor to her soul, pushing it until through the mucus-covered outer layer until it bit into something solid. Angel stifled a whimper, and the sound reminded him: this wasn’t Sans.

Opening one socket, he dared to look at her soul. A small green indicator light blinked back at him from the chip. Immediately, Gaster’s hands recoiled sharply as he released the soul, pushing himself back until he had no more bed behind him, at which point he fell onto the floor.

Hands finding their way to his face, he curled his fingers into his sockets, pulling as if trying to rip his skull apart. His cracked socket creaked loudly under the force; he knew that his body should be screaming out in pain, but he was numb.

Time unravelled and lost meaning as the scientist stared, unseeing, tears running down his fingers. When he finally couldn’t keep his sockets open any longer, he uncurled his fingers and masked his face with both hands; moisture stuck his palms to his cheeks.

“Don’t you have anything BETTER to do?” Angel rasped after uncounted minutes ticked away. It sounded as if she’d been crying for quite awhile, but he didn’t recall hearing it.

Slowly, Gaster uncovered his face to look at her; her defiance shone bright once more when their eyes met - her fear was gone, as if it had never existed in the first place. 

_ *You feel like the victim? Pathetic. _

It wasn’t Angel’s voice that spoke, nor his, he realized after a moment. He didn’t need to look around to know that the voice emanated from within his skull. There was nothing to say. Nothing to justify. No way to understand.

“God, why are you just SITTING there!?” Angel burst out suddenly, volume bordering on a scream. But Gaster didn’t react; not even to startle. “Make yourself useful! Make what you just  _ did  _ to me useful - use the GUILT you say you have  _ so _ much of!”

He looked into his hands for a moment before reaching out and grabbing into the bedframe, using it to pull himself to his feet so that he could stumble over to the magic inhibitor and turn it on, locking the padlock. 

Then, he reached into his labcoat’s pocket, retrieving a ring of twenty or so keys. He fumbled with them uselessly for a few moments before finding his coordination and picking one key out, then approached the bed slowly, circling around to the head of the bed where Angel was curled up.

She bundled her legs more tightly to her chest, glaring warily at him; he pretended not to notice, instead focusing his eyes on the shackles. Still moving slowly, he unlocked the arm closest to him, jerking the hand closest to her face away as she snapped her teeth at him, as if ready to bite. After a moment, he extended the keychain to her free hand, using his other hand to gesture to her other shackle.

He expected her to lunge forward with a physical attack the moment she was freed, but instead she slowly flexed her arms, hissing with pain. Even from the cautious distance he stood at, Gaster could see that the scales around her wrists were stripped away, leaving raw flesh exposed. Abandoning his restraint, he reached out a hand towards her, taking the keys that she’d placed next to her leg and putting them back into his pocket. Then, he reached towards her hands.

“May I see your injuries?” he asked in a monotone voice when she flinched away from his reach, narrowing her eyes .

Slowly, Angel looked down at the scrapes, then scooted to the edge of the bed, letting her legs hang onto the floor as she reached a hand out to him shakily. He bent his head a little closer, his hands faltering a hair’s width away from holding her arm as he silently diagnosed.

“You will need a salve and bandages, but the wounds are not deep enough to cause any permanent damage,” he announced, withdrawing his hands and wringing them together near his chest, awkwardly avoiding her gaze. “I will treat your injuries if you will allow me to,” he said after a moment.

“ _ What _ ?” was Angel’s only response.

“Also, I will not shackle you up again if you will not break any more of my bones,”  he added, holding the hand she’d kicked up to look at the bruising that had already begun to set in.

“What are you  _ doing?”  _ she insisted furiously, shaking her head with bitter disbelief.

“I am going to retrieve medical supplies so that I-”

“No, I mean,  _ WHY? _ ” she interrupted, yelling the last word and drawing her teeth back into a toothy sneer. “WHY let me loose? WHY act like you want to heal me? WHY pretend to care all of a sudden, after...?”

“Erm… you wished for you to make use of my guilt, did you not?”

“That’s NOT what I meant,” she growled, summoning up rage though she wanted nothing more than to disappear. “I meant, get it over with! You’re going to experiment on me, aren’t you? Hurry up - or kill me, or let me go!”

“I am sorry, but I cannot promise that this will be short-term,” Gaster avoided her gaze, cringing as she growled frustratedly. “Additionally, I wish for you to be in as little distress as possible during your time here, when possible. Before we begin, I hope that to see to it that you reach a lower stress level.”

Both monsters fell into silence, Angel looking over her shoulder at the shackles that had held her minutes before before turning back to Gaster, sneering disgustedly at him.

“Please, remain here for now. I will retrieve a healing salve and bandages for your injuries,” he spoke as he walked to the door, looking back just long enough to make sure she hadn’t moved.

Then he left the room behind, bound for the elevator and a quick trip to the Upperlab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways i hated this chapter when i wrote it and still do so if u didn't skip it, i apologize


	15. Undyne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Goat Dad appears!  
> Also here have a random [Gaster song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2hadQKbnvk)  
> 

Although he hadn’t stopped to re-engage the lock to Angel’s room, the monster hadn’t moved from the bed when Gaster returned minutes later, both with her salve and a large roll of gauze that would serve to dress her wounds. He’d also grabbed a roll of bandages to treat his hand which was tucked away in his breast pocket.

The skeleton sat at the foot of Angel’s bed when he entered, observing from the corners of his sockets that she shrank back against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. Without turning to face her directly, Gaster placed the small bowl of ointment closer to her, setting down the gauze next to it.

“You can treat your own wounds, can you not?” he mumbled, glancing at her sidelong. “I will not touch you,” he added, dabbing his fingers into the ointment and rubbing it onto his bruised hand with slow circular motions. Then, he wrapped a bandage between his thumb and index finger, encircling his entire palm a few times before securing the dressing with a safety pin from his pocket.

Then, he lifted up the front of his shirt, unwrapping the rib he’d bandaged earlier slowly. It ached deeply, despite the pills that he had taken earlier. Now that he no longer felt rushed, Gaster spread salve across the cracked rib gingerly, hissing at the tenderness.

Though he’d been aware of Angel’s eyes on him throughout the process, when he turned to meet her gaze expectantly he felt his abdomen flip over. She was staring through his ribcage to the soul exposed in his chest cavity, her expression simultaneously intense yet unreadable.

Dropping his shirt front quickly, he gestured towards the healing ointment impatiently. “Well? Did I waste my time preparing that? Or did you want me to…?” his voice started off sharp, but slowed and quieted as Angel only continued to stare at the front of his shirt.

“So that’s the soul that took the lives of so many people,” she said numbly, not seeming to hear him.

Slowly, Gaster scooched closer to Angel, picking up the bowl on the bed and swiping a thin layer of the salve onto his bony fingertips. Then he reached out and gingerly took Angel’s right hand, slowly applying the salve across the raw flesh.

Her eyes remained fixed on his chest, unresponsive, until he had bandaged up her first wrist, then she blinked a few times and looked at his hands as they picked up her other arm, drawing it closer to his body.

“My soul was innocent once, like all souls,” Gaster found himself speaking very softly as he continued tending to her. “My soul is not to blame for what I have done. I am the one who is… impure. Violent. I tainted it, and I can never go back. Do you understand why I did not want you to kill that human now? Your soul will never be free of your sins. LOVE changes souls. Forever.”

Avoiding looking at Angel’s face now, he focused on finishing his task. Once done, he set aside the bowl and wiped the remaining residue on his fingers onto his pantleg. Even now, Angel stared away distantly, seeming oblivious to her surroundings.

“Do you require anything else?” Gaster ventured uneasily after several minutes. “Food? Water? Would you like a blanket, or more suitable clothing? I know that it can be quite cold down here. You dressed for Hotland weather, not…”

As her silence stretched longer and the scientist’s mind began to wander, recollection of what he had done crept in on him, vivid yet more vivid as he sat in stillness. He pressed a hand into his cheek, trying to push down his growing horror.

To force a monster into sharing souls was considered both morally and legally one of the most hideous crimes amongst their kind; and he had jested her about it, vomiting questions that would incite the memory of it all.

And why? For amusement? To weaken the fire that blazed in her soul? Or had some part of him _wanted_ a fight? If he had harnessed patience instead and persuaded her- had her attach the monitor - _anything…_

Slowly, Gaster dared to look at Angel once more, her disengaged expression gaining new meaning. _I took the darkest path,_ he realized, trembling. _Again._

The hand that was pressed into his cheek slowly sank down to his ribcage and he closed his hand around the broken rib, squeezing his hand tighter until pain made him tremble; his mind churned and he took a deep breath that did nothing to fortify against his gnawing shame.

“I… I said awful things, Angel, that have only compounded my crimes. I am truly sorry to have-” he broke off, standing up from the bed and turning his back on the captain. When he glanced over his shoulder, she was still staring away, eyes glassy.

“No… that is not right, is it?” he mumbled, mostly to himself. No amount of apologizing would change anything.

“There is one thing that I must know - only one - regarding what you endured,” he tried to sound firm in his demand, but the unchanging nature of Angel’s vacant gaze took away what little conviction he’d found.

Moving back to the bed, he sat in front of her, clasping his hands together in front of his chest. “Angel. Your daughter - is she safe from the one who-” he paused as the captain’s slitted pupils instantly focused on him at the mention of her child. It was difficult to finish the question under her intense stare. “The one who attacked you cannot hurt her, can he?”

“They’re dead,” she answered hoarsely; though her voice was weak, fierce light was returning back to her eyes.

Briefly, Gaster wondered if Angel had taken his life in return for what he had stolen from her. It was a question worth asking - but not now.

“Will she be alright?” Gaster wondered, knowing that the question was empty.

“Undyne’s little, you know, but she’s tougher than anything. Even if I’m not there to take care of her, she’ll be okay. She could fight Asgore and win through her own will.”

The royal captain covered her face with webbed hands, hiding tears that welled up in her eyes. Unable to watch, Gaster averted his eyes, pressing his thumb firmly into his wounded hand.

“Your daughter knows that you love her very much - I am certain of that,” Gaster blurted out before he could think better of it, “however, is there anybody else who will be there for her?”

Angel half-closed her eyes, and for a moment the scientist thought that she had retreated back into herself, but then she smiled slightly, whispered, “she’ll find a way to get by, just like I did.”

 

-

 

Pollen clouded the air, thickening as massive white paws brushed lightly over yellow flowers, taking care to tread only on the dirt between the lively sprouts. King Asgore Dreemurr slowly made his way across the field of flowers, until he reached his throne and collapsed into it, scattering puffs of powder away from the seat. He looked up into the air, wondering: pollen, or monster dust?

The two human souls resting close together in his paw flickered back and forth in private conversation; Asgore looked on emptily, waiting, silent. Not much longer now. Birds chirped mutedly throughout the courtyard, echoed eerily down the golden corridor.

He could hear footsteps from the judgement hall minutes before a Royal Guard peered into the room, seeming shocked to see the King seated in his throne; he had steered far clear of the perch in the months since Asriel had been taken.

“Is she with you?” the king asked gravely, curling his fingers shut loosely around the human souls to conceal them.

The guard nodded, ushering in the small monster that was at their side. She looked around the throne room with one wide amber eye, pulling the strap of her backpack higher up onto her shoulder; her other hand held a long stick with a pointed end that was slung over her shoulder, like some sort of play-weapon.

“You are dismissed,” the king murmured across the room to the guard, nodding curtly. When they retreated, Asgore towered to his feet and moved closer to the young monster, smiling warmly down at her huge, awed eye.

“Hello, little one. Would you like a cup of tea?” he rumbled, kindness crinkling the corners of his tired eyes.

“Uh, sure, but… where’s my mom?”

The king’s expression hardened and he turned his face away from the child. “Come now, let us go inside and sit,” he forced softness into his voice, offering a massive paw for her to hold to guide her through the flowers.

After a moment, the young monster stepped back a full stride, scowling up at Asgore and dropping her backpack onto a patch of flowers with a _thump._ “No, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where my mom is,” she said firmly, placing the blunt end of her stick-spear on the ground.

For a few moments the king stared back at her defiant eyes - so familiar. Then, he knelt down and heaved a great sigh. “It must have been frightening to have a Royal Guard interrupt your class. I-”

“Royal Guards are the COOLEST,” the girl interrupted, pivoting away from Asgore so that she could swing her stick through the air, “I’m gonna be one as soon as I don’t have to go to school anymore! I’ll be the toughest, like mom!!” she proclaimed up to the cave ceiling proudly, puffing out her chest.

Asgore wiped away a tear that sparkled in his eye briefly, swallowing hard. After a moment of silence, the young monster turned her eye back to the king, crooked smile fading away as she saw his expression.

“Where… _is_ she?” she asked in a tiny voice.

Shaking, Asgore opened his paw to reveal the pair of human souls he was holding, scarcely able to keep himself from crumpling. “Do you know what these are, little one?” he asked, then bit down on his bottom lip.

She stared at the souls for a few moment before nodding slowly, suddenly quite serious. “Yeah, those are human souls. Mom said that we need them to break the barrier, and that it’s her job to find them.”

“That is correct. It is because of humans that we have to live down here, and because of humans that we must sacrifice lives...” the king murmured, then closed his eyes for a few moments. Toriel would know a way to tell this child what had happened without breaking their soul, but him…

When he opened his eyes again, the tip of her stick was dangling to the floor, mouth open; a tear rolled out of her eye and she stepped back a few times.

“She was so very brave, to win these souls, and so strong,” Asgore closed his hand around them again, putting his spare hand on his knee and rising to full height from where he knelt.

The girl’s face crumpled and she brought a fist up to her face, pressing her mouth against it as a sob escaped her, then another. Shaking, Asgore lifted a hand to place on her shoulder; in an instant, her head jerked up and she bared her teeth, snarling.

“You’re LYING,” she screeched, raising her stick high over her head and swinging it down at Asgore’s extended paw. He withdrew it sharply, eyes widening as the child charged forward, stick held in front of her like a javelin.

“You’re a LIAR!” another scream filled the courtyard; the birds fell into silence.

With a firm grasp, Asgore took the tip of the sharpened spear in his hand and lifted it up, pulling it out of the girl’s grasp; to his surprise, the child continued her attack, swinging a fist aimlessly. Tossing the stick aside, he used one hand to stop the child’s advance, placing it squarely in the middle of her chest.

Forced into stillness, the child opened her eye wide, staring up at Asgore. There was pain there that was all too familiar to him; this child had lost all that she had - all that she admired and loved. Because of _them._

“You remind me so much of her,” Asgore whispered, kneeling again in front of the girl and using the tip of his thumb to wipe the streak of tears from her cheek. “Courageous, strong and determined. She would be very proud of you - trying to fight _me_ for her.”

After a few seconds, the girl threw herself forward; not in an attack this time, but for comfort. She spread her arms as wide as she could to hug Asgore, although her fingertips fell far short of reaching the edges of his armor’s breastplate.

Tenderly, Asgore rose to his feet with the girl cradled against him, moving to his throne and sitting down. He lost track of the minutes as he stroked the long fringe of red hair tied into a ponytail behind her head; until, finally, she pushed away from him, sniffling, her grief lapsing.

“Excuse me, but would you like to know how to beat me?” the king rumbled.

She seemed confused for a moment, then turned her attention to the king’s closed hand, putting her tiny webbed fingers on it and pulling it open to look at the souls yet again. They were both silent for a time, then her yellow eye focused back on Asgore’s face and she nodded once, firmly. Determined.


	16. Subject One

“Entry Five. This entry will detail the results of my first DT experiments not involving myself: one young adult female monster named Angel. For the purpose of consistency, she will be henceforth referred to as Subject Two, or S-2.”

“Earlier, I took her measurements and distilled the DT for her first dose. However, taking into consideration the reality that her soul is comparatively weaker than mine - significantly so - I have realized I cannot yet proceed.”

“As much as I would like to press on with the Determination experiments, I have reservations. Numerous reservations. It is bad enough that she is not a willing volunteer to these tests, as many of my subjects once were…”

“I know that I must press on, but the risks are too great as things are currently. There is something I have been whittling away at for quite some time - a failsafe, in case my soul falls over the edge. A magical device powerful enough to stop nearly anything - even a Boss Monster with a maximized LV.”

“I created a prototype many years ago, when I still lived in Snowdin with… ...well, I made a mistake in the calculations of the original ‘blaster,’ rendering it useless, but with the blueprints, I will be able to pick up where I left off. I took a far too physical approach with the first one - the blaster will need corresponding soul bionics in order to be bound to a particular monster’s magic in order to work properly.”

“It will not take long to complete. I can likely finish the bionics and begin calibrating them to their host soul not long after I must deliver the soul chambers to Asgore, assuming that I am working full tilt. Finding a monster to give this power to, however…”

“I had been considering Ilea as a candidate, as I know she would never use it with malicious intentions - however, if she is all the way in the Ruins when the worst happens, it may be too late to prevent damage before she is able to stop me.”

Gaster paused his recorder for a moment, clearing his throat - it felt like a long time since he had spoken so much. He took a sip of coffee, a sigh of exhaustion blowing through him. Then he looked up to the dozens of security monitors he sat before, of which only three were switched on. 

The one monitoring Angel’s room was alive with movement while she did push-ups on the floor, then rolled over onto her back for crunches. Gaster wondered to himself whether or not this was her usual morning routine, or if it was simply to pass the time. He had not been in to see her yet; he didn’t want to waltz in with no experiment prepared.

Shaking his skull dismissively, he turned his attention the screen that showed a dark room with a large cylindrical chamber aglow with pale green light. It was difficult to count the times he’d hovered by that chamber, wondering: what would they be like?

Would they be an echo of Sans, or a complete stranger? Could he look the monster he’d created in the eye without seeing the woman he’d used for his own emotional experimentation? Would they be something new, or a ghost of his mistakes?

For a moment, he felt immobile; then he tipped his head towards the digital recorder, steadying himself before unpausing the recording to say, “it is time to wake up Subject One.”

Tucking the recorder away into his labcoat pocket, Gaster stood from his seat in front of the monitors and brushed his hand down his shirt front a few times. There was no way to predict the nature of his experiment - whether they’d be clever or useless, strong or meek - there was only one way to find out. One certainty that he held, however, was that he needed to be in control from the moment that they awoke.

If the creature wasn’t supplicating and obedient, his efforts were wasted; the resources and great sacrifice required to make it washed down the drain. Hardening his soul and keeping this close in mind, Gaster gathered a clipboard, pen and a stack of lined paper to make notes of the clone’s condition. 

It would undoubtedly require care and supervision for an unforeseeable amount of time after it’s genesis; after all, despite having much of Sans’ knowledge, it would be a lost and directionless child with no sense of identity beyond that. Malleable, but even one mistake…

Apprehension overtook Gaster as he reached the door that would lead into the dark room containing the genesis chamber. Before his convictions could retreat completely, he gave himself a firm shake and opened the door, stepping to the glowing chamber and scanning the small screen next to it showing the clone’s vitals for what felt like the thousandth time. 

They were healthy - they were always healthy.

Though he knew that it was useless, he attempted to mentally prepare for what was ahead.  _ Best just to get it over with,  _ he told himself, entering the commands into the terminal that would drain the fluid within and ease off the anesthesia. Then, once the fluid level was low enough, he powered off the respirator.

Holding his own breath, the scientist watched as their oxygen level began to plummet.  _ Breathe, please, breathe,  _ he begged silently. An audible gasp came from within the chamber after what felt like a lifetime, and Gaster closed his eyes, taking in breath and resting his forehead against the screen in front of him. Finally, he disengaged the lock, summoning a serious scowl onto his face as he sidestepped to the curved glass front of the chamber. 

With the cloudy solution they’d been suspended in drained away, Gaster got his first look at his creation. They were slumped, seated, against the back of the chamber, skull drooping.

‘ _ Lacking the vestigial structures and pelvic shape of a male skeleton, Subject One appears to be female. This is most unexpected - previous research had suggested that the sex of a monster, if present, is determined by a gene present in the magical center of the father’s soul; given that a male source was used, this should have produced a physically male body.’ _

The scientist jotted the notes down swiftly, looking back up at the unconscious skeleton frequently. They were tangled in wires and tubes, glistening wetly under the green interior light. Though not conscious, they were rattling slightly.

A pair of magical hands took the clipboard and pen from Gaster’s own and he pulled open the glass door, unleashing a hiss of pressurized air and a chemical smell across the room.

Moving carefully, Gaster removed the respirator from their skull, untangled a few monitoring devices, then at last switched the respiration monitor to battery power and tossed the wires aside. 

‘ _ S-1’s bone structure is a combination of both sources. Fascinating. They appear almost as offspring between Sans and Portulaca may have. The inappropriateness of this is not lost on me.’ _

Soul anesthesia normally wore off quickly due to it’s magical nature - the skeleton crumpled in the bottom of the chamber was overdue for awakening, Gaster realized.

Nervously, the scientist found himself looking at his own face reflected in the curved glass surface of the chamber. For a moment, he only stared at himself helplessly, distraught. All vital signs had indicated otherwise, but Gaster now wondered if they had always been predestined for death. The possibility that he might only be able to  _ take _ life was all too real and crushing in that moment.

“Please, little one,” he barely whispered, reaching out a hand to touch the gleaming white bone of their calf, but never making contact. “I waited, I gave you so much time… now, it is time for you to wake up,” the words he breathed were barely audible through his clenched teeth as he bit back desperation. 

_ ‘She is slow to wake. Have I failed? Will I have to watch her turn to dust before my eyes?’ _ the sound of pen scratching paper was the only sound to fill the air now.  _ ‘I knew it. This was all for nothing. This is what I deserve… I could have expected this, but I did not expect it to hurt. I’ _

Out of the corner of his eye, something stirred. Breath catching in his throat, the Royal Scientist watched closely as the unconscious skeleton’s fist opened and closed slowly, grasping gently at the bottom of the damp chamber.

_ ‘Yes! She is alive. Thank the Gods. She is so small - like Sans, or perhaps a child. I couldn’t stand to’ _

Subject One’s head jerked up suddenly, then pulled back in shock as they realized there was someone in front of them; the back of their skull collided with the thick glass behind them, producing a loud, hollow  _ bonk. _

They exclaimed in pain immediately, reaching a hand to the back of their head and holding onto it. Gaster watched silently as their sockets filled up with neon green tears that spilled over and they whimpered quietly to themselves, distraught.

_ ‘She’s awake. Definitely younger than Portulaca, though not a child. Although - how on Earth did she get dirt on her face, she hasn’t even stepped out of the chamber.’ _

Moving quickly, Gaster swiped his tongue across his thumb and reached forward to wipe away the dark specs off S-1’s face. They were still too preoccupied by pain to notice until he made contact; then, their eyes widened and the left socket lit up with bright green magic. He pulled away just as swiftly as he’d advanced, frowning.

_ ‘It isn’t dirt. She has bone freckling - a recessive gene neither source showed.’ _

Regaining his composure, Gaster forced himself into a serious scowl. For a moment the two skeletons locked eyes; then, S-1 sat up straighter, turning their head to take in their surroundings. However, seeing their reflection in the chamber, their attention was immediately captured.

Gaster watched on wordlessly as the clone slowly reached out to put their fingertips against their mirrored face, then - never looking away from their reflection - brought the same hand to their cheekbone, stroking it gently. Then they looked at both their hands closely, touching them together lightly a few times.

‘ _ She seems amazed and frightened by herself simultaneously. It must be very jarring to… become.’ _

For a moment, Gaster had turned back to focus on his magical hands, but a damp hand grabbing onto his shirt front quickly regained his attention. Stiffening, he jerked up straighter and met S-1’s gaze, watching as their other hand touched their own sternum, eyes enormous and full of curiosity.

_ ‘Fascinating. Though she has no memory of me, she seems… enraptured.’ _

Hearing the sound of pencil scraping against paper, Subject One’s attention turned to the spectral hands holding the clipboard. Then, they looked back at Gaster, their head cocking to the side inquisitively. 

“I am recording your behaviour. I created you, you see - to assist me,” the scientist explained, frowning as they reached insistently towards the clipboard with both hands now. “Hm? Do you need to write something?”

They didn’t answer him verbally, so Gaster summoned the pair of hands into their reach, watching with a frown as they snatched it out of the air and brought it closer to their face, eyes scanning the messy handwriting. 

“That is not for you to read,” Gaster growled, reaching his own hand forward to pull the clipboard from their grasp and frowning at the wet fingerprints they’d left behind. Truthfully, their wonder was amusing, but he couldn’t afford to be complacent and allow them to become defiant. 

For a moment, S-1 tapped their fingers together awkwardly, looking away, as if considering their options. Then, they squared up to Gaster, imitating his stern facial expression. Disguising his surprise, the scientist rose to his feet; he felt his soul darken, and gave that darkness room to breathe.

Slamming the chamber door shut in S-1’s face, he shut the lock and took a full step back. “Very well. I will let you out when you are ready to comply,” he sneered through the glass, his eyes narrowed and predatory, faintly gleaming purple in the darkness.

With an unsteady rattle of bones, S-1 stood up on new legs and pressed both hands on the inside of the chamber, straining audibly against it. Their meager strength was nothing against the metal bar locking them in, however. Yet they banged against the glass uselessly with a balled up fist, sockets welling with tears.

A cold smile crossed Gaster’s face and he turned his back to the chamber, pretending not to hear the frantic tapping on glass as he walked towards the door.

“S-s-sorry!”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob, looking over his shoulder at the chamber. S-1 had both palms and their forehead pressed against the glass as they stared pleadingly at him.

Smirking, Gaster gestured towards the clipboard, scribbling away.  _ ‘She seems defiant by nature, which could present a significant issue in the future if not controlled. Luckily, control is one of my strong points. I have even managed to make her very first word an apology.’ _

With his writing done, Gaster flicked on the lightswitch by the door, squinting for a moment in the brightness before turning back to S-1. Their mouth was open in a displeased hiss as they shielded their eyes against the light, revealing a crooked set of teeth with sharp canines. 

“Do not be so dramatic,” Gaster muttered under his breath, stepping back to the chamber and resting his hand on the bar that would open it once more. Narrowing his eyes, he watched S-1 shiver inside the chamber, unable to resist the cold.

“Pluh…. please?” they stammered, looking at Gaster’s hand ready to open the door with enormous, begging eyes.

“I am glad that you are learning quickly,” the scientist’s praise was flat, sly, “because I do not want to hurt you - so you do not want to make me angry, do you?”

S-1 looked from the bar to Gaster’s face before shaking their head from side to side, crossing their arms over their sternum; their teeth were chattering together uncontrollably.

Sighing, Gaster pushed the bar down and stepped aside to let the door swing open, sliding his labcoat off his shoulders. He held out a hand for S-1 and they rushed forward, taking hold of it.

“Come, we will get the embryonic fluid off your bones and find you some clothing. You smell awful,” the scientist murmured, draping the coat carefully over their shoulders.

For a moment, S-1 stared blankly up at him; then, they brought their wrist up to their face, inhaling deeply through their nose. Then they shrugged, hugging the labcoat around themselves; their face settled into a neutral, tilted smirk which showed their uneven teeth.

While Gaster guided the smaller skeleton to the Upperlab elevator, they repeatedly licked their fingertip and rubbed it across their cheekbones, trying to wipe away their freckles as he had.

“Leave them be, they are a part of your face,” he muttered absentmindedly, stopping in front of the elevator entrance and opening the door. Pushing against S-1’s spine to usher them along, Gaster stepped into the tight space and entered his passcode.

Once the door closed and the elevator began to ascend, S-1 clung against Gaster unhappily, baring their teeth and hissing quietly. 

“You are a skeleton, not a snake,” the scientist sighed, remaining aloof as they grasped incessantly at his shirt. 

_ ‘She seems to have a phobia of tight spaces. I suppose that’s my fault,’  _ he scribbled onto the clipboard, more for a distraction than anything. He would have continued writing if not for the fact that the small skeleton managed to wedge themselves between his arm and his body, pressing against him contently.

When the elevator door opened at last, Subject One immediately broke away from Gaster and hurried towards a nearby window that overlooked a massive magma pool stretching away towards the CORE.

“Do you understand where we are?” the scientist wondered, mostly to himself.

“Y-y-yeah. And I know you,” they spoke with stumbling confidence, turning to look at him coolly. “Y-you’re W-Wingdings Gaster. I did research about you w-when I w-was a kid.”

Gaster frowned over at them, waiting for them to correct themselves. When they didn’t, he sighed heavily. “You were never a child. You were just “born,” in a manner of speaking, minutes ago. Everything that you “know” comes from another monster’s soul. Any memories that you have are merely accidents - a result of the fine line between knowledge and memories - and not truly yours,” he said this as he walked to S-1’s side, gazing through the window as well.

“Is there anything else rattling around in your skull that I should know about?” he asked them after a long silence.

The experiment glanced at Gaster - sidelong, fearful. There was a tone to his voice that implied that this question had an incorrect answer and consequences. For a few moments, S-1 stammered helplessly, then shrugged, looking down at their feet.

“I-I don’t k-know. I’m s-s-s-...” they hesitated, taking in a deep breath before managing to continue, “there’s a lot in there. It… It’s all so new.”

“Very well,” the scientist said dismissively, putting a hand on their shoulder gently. “That is fine. First things first, we will get you cleaned up, and I will find you some clothing - I do not believe I have anything that will fit you  _ comfortably,  _ but it will be better than nothing. Also, I will find Sa- Source One’s old labcoats for you.”

Ponderously, Gaster put a hand on his chin, staring down at the rib-height skeleton. Their legs were longer than Sans’, resulting in a couple extra inches of height, but the coats would fit, regardless. Actual clothing, however, was another matter.

“Perhaps some of Portie’s clothing is still lying around,” he said aloud, quietly, taking ahold of S-1’s hand and guiding them away from the window. After a few twists and turns, they stepped through the door into his room.

“Go get into the shower,” the scientist ordered, pointing towards the bathroom door as he opened the drawers of his dresser, digging through them. S-1 nodded, walking around behind him and into the room they’d been pointed to. After a few long moments of silence, the scientist sighed loudly, glancing over his shoulder.

“W-what now?” they called from the next room.

“Turn on the water!” the scientist barked exasperatedly. “Then, make sure it is hot, though not burning,” he went on once he could hear the water running.

Gaster continued his search through the drawers until locating a turtleneck shoved into the back of his bottom drawer that had shrunk in the wash. Holding it up in front of him, he nodded. It would be long enough to cover their body without tripping them, at least; good enough.

“H-hey, w-what does this part d-” Subject One began, their voice cutting off in a shrill screech as the sound of the showerhead sputtering and beginning to run filled the air.

Biting back laughter, Gaster tucked the shrunken shirt over his arm and hurried into the bathroom, moving to S-1’s side and taking the showerhead from their hands to set it back in its rightful place overhead. It must have been left down last time he’d used the shower, he realized.

“You are helpless,” he said softly, inspecting their dripping skull for a moment. They had undoubtedly managed to spray water directly into their sockets. “You may open your eyes. It was only water.”

They opened their right eye, which was aglow with magic, first, looking warily at Gaster. Then, they uncertainly tipped their head back to look up at the showerhead, cascading water over and past them now. 

Shaking his head and fighting amusement off his face, Gaster glanced at the labcoat that they’d dropped on the floor - at least they’d had the sense to remove it. Then, he slid the glass door of the shower shut.

“I-I don’t w-want it closed,” S-1 mumbled pathetically, looking through the frosted glass and putting a hand against it.

“Well, I do not want even more water to clean up,” Gaster growled back, grabbing a used towel off the towel rack and sweeping it across the floor with his foot, drying the stray droplets that had scattered. 

Once done, he kicked the towel over to the corner where an overflowing hamper sat, then redirected his attention to S-1. Realizing they were still watching him, he bit back impatience and put a hand on the door, sliding it back and forth slightly.

“Look. It does not even have a lock. You may even leave it open a few inches. Now, please, just get beneath the water and-” he trailed off, watching as S-1 stepped forward into the falling water, rubbing their hands across their skull, then working their way down to their collarbones. Turning his back, Gaster leaned against the glass door and took a moment to reign himself in.

“Gaster?” a voice called from a distance; for a moment he was unsure if he had truly heard it, or if it was fabricated. After a few moments, he heard the voice again; closer now, and more familiar. Feeling his windpipe tighten, the scientist tossed the turtleneck onto the bathroom counter and rushed to the ajar door, peering through the crack.

“Lousy timing. He’s in the shower, I think,” another voice said, quietly.

“Remain here. Do not follow me for any reason. Do you understand?” Gaster said quietly over his shoulder, making sure that his voice remained icily calm. 

A moment later, S-1’s face appeared at the other end of the shower where the door was left open a crack and they nodded, apprehensive. 

As quickly as he could, Gaster opened the bathroom door, moving into his room and shutting it behind him. Then he strode to the entrance of his quarters to confront the interlopers.

“Why don’t we go wait in the-” a girl was saying.

“Ilea?” Gaster called out as he stepped into the hallway; in an instant, he recognized the dark shape beside her. “Shade!” he added, shocked. 

Both monsters turned back from their retreat, frozen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I was a little late on this chapter because of the Anxiety, but anyways. If you're interested, I've also started up a sort of "deleted scenes" work - [ here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8114104) That won't be updating regularly, but I'll make sure to add a note here when there's an extra chapter added there as well!


	17. yet darker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even really sure _what_ to warn for here so just
> 
>  
> 
> general violence i guess

“Oh! We didn’t interrupt you, did we?” Ilea gasped, taking in Gaster’s fully-clothed, dry form before pointing towards the bedroom and the sound of running water.

“No, I-” the skeleton began, although he hadn’t quite invented a lie yet.

“Clearly, he’s got somebody else in there,” Shade interrupted, their frown instantly replaced with a wicked grin. “Well, it can’t be Grillby, with it being  _ water _ and all, so-”

“Oh my! Why would Grillby be in Gaster’s bedroom?” Ilea cut in.

“Well, Ilea, when two monsters both  _ really  _ want to,” Shade began with a giggle.

“Shade, please, I am not  _ that _ naive!” she exclaimed with mock crossness, shaking a finger at them. “But I had no idea  _ Grillby _ -”

“Why have you come?” the skeleton heard the menacing calm in his own voice, yet felt nothing.

“Well! I didn’t know Shade was acquainted with you, but then we bumped into one another on their way home from the Ruins yesterday and we began talking - we'd never really spoken before - and they told me how you two met. Goodness! You must care about them very much, to go so far out of your way just to make them corporeal,” Ilea explained animatedly.

Quickly catching onto the partial story that she had been told, Gaster glanced briefly at Shade’s cool, unreadable expression. Although it seemed odd that they would give up an opportunity to speak ill of him, he supposed it was a strategic move - Ilea wouldn’t be so friendly with them after hearing their true tale of woe.

_ Revealing their common experience with her whilst deftly avoiding insulting me,  _ Gaster marvelled. The tiniest of respectful nods dipped his head towards Shade before he looked back to Ilea.

“Well, I am sorry that you both came all this way for nothing, but I really must ask that you leave. Now is not a good time,” he said, waving his arms at his sides in attempt to usher them both back towards the exit.

“Aww!” Ilea whined, shooting a disappointed look at Shade. “We could wait until your mystery monster is done in there, couldn’t we? I’d _love_ to meet them!”  
“Yeah, me too,” Shade growled, their eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Is that so?” Gaster could feel something slipping. “Well. While we are on the topic of things that we would like to know, I shall ask why the both of you ran off and left me, yet see it appropriate to simply “stop by” for a “visit,” and find the audacity to act put off when I do not have time!” Feigning calmness in the presence of S-1 was now forgotten as his words tumbled out and he fiercely air-quoted a choice few words. 

While Shade and Ilea were still stunned into silence, he quickly constructed a lie. “Moreover, you waltz in and make inane assumptions about an unfamiliar monster in my shower! I will have you two know, I have a pipe leak, which I was handling until I heard sneaky mutters outside my room!”

Ilea shrank down, her cheery expression vanishing as the scientist raised his voice at the pair. Shade, however, floated slightly higher, the lights in their eyes dimming as they took him in.

“Ya done?” they snapped after Gaster appeared to calm slightly. A lull fell over the trio.

“You know why I ran away, Gaster. You left first, and I was… I was terrified. You  _ can’t  _ blame me for that,” Ilea’s voice was despondent when she spoke in her defense after a few moments of silence, and she avoided his gaze.

Sighing, the skeleton nodded his head. “No, you are right, little flower, I cannot be upset with you over that. I was very concerned that you disappeared, you know.”

Shade watched the exchange, mouth open with a mixture of surprise and disgust. ‘ _ Little flower?’ ‘Very concerned?’  _ They drifted backwards slightly, shaking their body back and forth. How odd and out-of-character. What sort of spell was Ilea under, they wondered, to treat the wretched doctor so fondly? More importantly, why was the affection mutual?

“I suppose I was mostly addressing Shade with that question,” Gaster said after a moment, turning his eyes accusingly on the dark phantom.

The ghost, prepared to have the blame turned on them, promptly switched on their innocence, the revulsion vanishing from their face. “I’m sorry, man - I didn’t realize how late it was getting, and I  _ never  _ stay out past Napsta’s bedtime. They would’ve been upset if I wasn’t there to say goodnight,” they spoke with easy guilt, looking away. “I would’ve said something, I swear, but… well, I’m sure your phone call from the king was a  _ lot  _ more important than  _ me.” _

Gaster disguised his impressed expression, only looking to Ilea for a split-second. It seemed the spectre was especially sharp today.

“Besides, it’s not like your feelings got hurt over  _ me, _ ” they added, looking pointedly at Ilea.

“That is true,” the scientist agreed coolly, pushing memories of the meaningless lonesome sorrow into the back of his mind. “Very well. All is forgiven. My apologies for greeting you both so rudely, but I cannot take intruders into my lab lightly. I ask that you both tell me why you are  _ really  _ here - I find it difficult to believe that you have come all this way simply to visit.”

“I’m here to volunteer for your Barrier experiments,” Shade burst out at the same time as Ilea firmly said, “I am here to keep the promise that I made.”

Gaster’s sockets widened as the slipping feeling returned; a slow ticking darkness unfurled in his skull - he held onto his desperation and panic to stave off the darkness. “You need to leave,” he said, turning his back on them.

“No way. I told you. As long as you’re gonna break the Barrier, I’m on your side,” Shade was the first to speak, confident as they floated to Gaster’s side, circling around to look up into his eyes. “When Ilea told me that she was repaying a debt handing her soul over…” 

They hesitated, glancing over at the other monster before leaning in closer and lowering their voice. “I knew what I had to do. There’s no way I’m sitting on the bench for this one. You got a shot at the Barrier? I’m a bullet in your gun.”

Slowly, Gaster reigned his gaze to look at Shade. Their certainty shone as brightly as their glittering eyes. Almost choking on his voice, the scientist managed, “I do not want to hurt you, Shade. Nor Ilea. Go home. Reconsider. Be with your loved ones and reflect upon your lives’ value - you have someone that needs you. Unless you are willing to give up your life for this campaign of mine that may not even work-”

“I am, man. I am willing. I’m  _ positive, _ ” Shade interrupted, looking up into Gaster’s sockets unwaveringly, “and that’s knowing already how it feels to be your experiment.”

Unexpectedly, the words stung. Unsure how to argue with the resolute ghost, Gaster looked helplessly to Ilea, mentally clutching to the sight of her compassionate eyes gazing back at him.

“Don’t you even start, silly,” she said gently, closing the distance between them with a few strides and taking his hands in hers. “I’ve already made my choice.”

His airways threatened to close up; pulling in as deep of a breath as he could, he tried to speak, but his words faltered in his windpipe. The world became quiet; all the emotions that pulsed in his soul, soft yet despairing yet furious, crept away. He held onto Ilea’s hands tightly, but it felt almost as if they weren’t there at all.

“Perhaps… there is something that you both can help with, now that I am thinking on it,” Gaster appeared thoughtful as he said this, though the words seemed to enter the air of their own accord, disconnected. “If you are both truly willing, that is,” he added.

“How many times to I gotta say it?” Shade asked impatiently, their eyes widening as they sensed a lapse in Gaster’s resolve to send them home. “I’m all yours.”

The skeleton felt his grip tighten involuntarily around Ilea’s paws, and he didn’t dare to look at Shade. They already knew, more or less, what was in store for them after their conversation at Grillby’s yet still, they insisted. 

“Gaster, you’re hurting me,” Ilea’s voice, tiny and childlike, interrupted his thoughts and he quickly released his grip on her paws, dropping his arms back to his sides.

Suddenly, it seemed blatantly clear to him: fighting it had been pointless from the beginning - it was best to simply give in. Better yet, he could harness this detached darkness that crept up in his soul and pushed him out. No more charades. 

_ *You took long enough to figure it out,  _ a voice whispered from behind him. He didn’t have to see them to recognize the Fallen Child’s voice; he was familiar enough with the form his hallucinations took by now.

“Come with me, please,” he spoke quietly, circling around Ilea and leading them off towards the elevator. He expected to feel dread that something would go wrong, or guilt for what he was about to do, but emptiness kept its cold hold on him; perfect.

A plan slowly unfolded itself in his skull while they descended. Containing Ilea would be no more difficult than Angel’s case, particularly considering she was unlikely to fight - but Shade, on the other hand, was much more difficult to contain. However, their soul was now corporeal; if he could contain the soul itself, the monster would no longer be an issue. 

_ *You know how to get to it, too,  _ a small voice whispered from around waist-height; Gaster glanced down at the empty space, face hardening, before stopping in front of the dead-end of the corridor and opening up the false outer wall.

“Where are we going?” Shade asked suspiciously, though they floated into the small space not long after Ilea did, unfaltering in her trust in the scientist.

“Down to my second lab, where I have kept the soul fragment since it came into my hands,” he explained to Shade. Momentarily, he realized that Ilea was unaware of the events involving Chara’s soul, as well as the true nature of the coming experiments -  but there was no point in repeating the words now. It no longer mattered.

“A soul?” Ilea asked with innocent curiosity, looking from Shade to Gaster. Unexpectedly, he felt a stab of pity. The woman didn’t even realize until this moment how little she knew.

“Chara Dreemurr’s.” When Shade answered in his stead, Gaster swore that he felt the temperature in the elevator drop at the name’s mention. In the tense silence, he had opportunity to hear Ilea’s breaths as they quickened.

“You never told me that you have their soul,” she dared to speak after a long silence, looking up at the scientist with a mixture of betrayal and hurt. He stared back, instinctively furrowing his brow apologetically and tipping his head though nothing shone from the emptiness to spurn him to do so.

“Not their entire soul - only a shard which produces the force which keeps human souls intact after their host’s death,” he explained, stifling an irritated sigh. Though, watching Ilea’s eyes begin to dart about as if searching for an escape nearly made this explanation worthwhile to some part of him. 

“The rest of Chara is much closer to home than you were led to believe,” Gaster went on, tipping his head to the side with insincere sympathy, “Toriel brought them to the Ruins and buried them, rather than leaving them to rot in the castle with Asgore. Did she keep that information from you?”

He watched wordlessly as Ilea reached out a paw to rest on the wall in front of her, lowering her head and shutting her eyes tightly. A moment later, she turned around to face the skeleton, her eyes shimmering with tears of rage rather than sorrow or anxiety.

“You can’t use my fears against me; even if it’s true, it doesn’t matter. You weren’t  _ there,  _ Gaster  - you never knew them,” Ilea’s paws, wringing together in front of her chest, dropped suddenly and she stepped forward until she was muzzle-to-sternum with him, glowering up. 

“You were not  _ there  _ to see them play with Asriel in the courtyard, or to hear the way they spoke of monsters. You never saw the way their eyes shone with wonder when they looked upon the Delta Rune, like they knew something we did not. The day that they fell ill and Asriel never left their side - the day our hopes and dreams died -  _ where were you? _ ”

Ilea closed her eyes momentarily, tears dissolving away into her thick fur. Then she looked up again, calm. “So don’t try to manipulate me. You were  _ never  _ there, or you’d know: I’m not  _ afraid  _ of Chara - and even if I were, they’re dead. But I don’t have nightmares of them. I miss them.”

_ *Ilea… _ for the briefest moment, he thought that he’d let her name slip out, but soon realized it hadn’t been his voice. A shape seemed to move near Ilea, small and humanlike, looking up at her; then, it was gone. Blinking rapidly, Gaster glanced to the other two monsters in the elevator, quickly ascertaining that he had been the only one who had heard them.

“I… I am certain that they miss you as well, wherever they may be,” Gaster reassured the defiant monster, his hand trembling as it touched her shoulder lightly. Then, he hardened and turned to Shade. “Would you like to catch her up on the remainder of the details, since you are feeling so talkative today, Shade?”

There it was again - the same menacing coldness in his voice.

Shade seemed immune, looking to Ilea solemnly and taking a deep breath before pushing forward, “Gaster wants to use the force from Chara’s soul on regular monster’s souls to see if they can be made more powerful. That way, we might be able to break the Barrier with what we have - before more humans fall, and maybe prevent more people getting hurt. Not to mention, seeing the sun again before we’re all dust.”

The scientist considered pointing out that two human children had already been murdered, but with a glance at Ilea’s grim expression, he thought better of it - he was not in sympathetic company. 

“But, to make it work, he thinks that we might have to suffer, or even…” they hesitated for a moment, looking Gaster in the sockets with a grimace, then concluded, “almost die.”

The scientist averted his eyes, disguising a smirk by wiping the corners of his mouth with a hand. “And yet, here you are, Shade, volunteering. I understand Ilea - she has a debt to repay, and did not know the true nature of this project. But you? Well, now that I am thinking on it…”

_ *You know this has to be convincing for it to work,  _ the voice whispered from behind him. Shaking his head, Gaster looked the dark ghost up and down, summoning an arrogant smirk onto his face.

“You simply bleed self-hatred, do you not? Well, well. Did you miss the pain?”

Shade flinched from the words; after a moment to let the full sharpness of them sink in, the ghost’s mouth widened and grew more jagged, dark teeth sprouting from their ‘gums’ as they floated forward, positioning themselves between Ilea and Gaster.

“Admittedly, I found enjoyment in it as well, but you already know that, yes?” Gaster continued, watching Shade with amusement as they moved to “protect” Ilea. She herself didn’t seem all that put off by the change in his nature, still preoccupied with her own anger.

“Do you know what the best part was?” he purred on, leaning closer to Shade. “You believed for so  _ very  _ long that I was trying to help you; you endured the suffering and humiliation day after day thinking that I trying to fulfill the wishes of a poor, helpless haunt li-”

“Shut up!” Shade’s voice ripped from their core suddenly with a snarl and they threw themselves forward at Gaster, jaw agape, ready to spew magic from within. 

_ *Now! _

Pale light flooded the elevator, lighting Gaster’s way as he lunged forward against a tidal wave of betrayal and hatred. For a blink, he faltered. What if they were furious enough to…? No. Not possible.

Moving quicker than he’d thought possible, the skeleton forced a hand past Shade’s gaping mouth and into their body, pushing towards the source of the light. His hand contacted something with a  _ zap  _ of discharged magic and he closed his fingers tightly, pulling back against the shadow’s convulsing insides and ripping the soul back through their mouth and into his grasp.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment, the three monsters in the elevator staring agape at the fragile soul clutched in the scientist’s bony hand.

Then, Shade began to pull away uselessly, frantic magic tears scattering about the elevator with attrite hisses.

“Gaster, let them go!” Ilea sprang into motion at last, reaching for his hand that clasped onto the soul tightly.

Magic swelled in Gaster’s chest cavity as he rounded on Ilea, his triumphant expression vanishing. “Move against me again and I will crush it,” he hissed, lifting the soul closer to himself and dragging the ghost upwards by their soul-strings. 

Realization, all too late and futile, dawned on Ilea’s face and she took a step back, pressing her hands to her chest. “H-how could you… w-why are you… Who  _ are  _ you?”

The Royal Scientist felt his face tighten; a flicker of guilt, fleeting and feigning yet painful, jabbed into him. Then, he opened his spare hand, summoning an extra set into existence which assaulted Ilea. One grasped the front of her gown, the other closing around her neck tightly, pulling her closer; once he could reach, he reached forward and stroked the marking over her eye.

“ _ What  _ are you?” she whispered, mortified.

“Determined.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this we leave the OC Big Bang arc and enter a new one. It's all downhill from here, folks.


	18. Difficult Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyways it's time for 20 chapters of tragic backstory and a shitty romance arc literally nobody asked for including me. Assume from here on out there's gonna be some gross gaslighting or emotional manipulation or physical abuse in every chapter from now 'til forever and I am sorry.

 

Stepping out of the elevator on the Upperlab level, Gaster spoke inwardly to himself, holding onto his own steady internal voice that reminded him,  _ I had to obtain test subjects one way or another. I cannot keep stalling; I must press on. This was a leap forward. _

For a moment, he rested his forearm on the nearest wall, pulling air as deeply into himself as he could before exhaling slowly, clearing the residual darkness away with nothing more than a sigh. Standing up straight once more, he looked ahead to his next task stonily. For a moment, he struggled to recall; what  _ was  _ his next task? 

Recollection came to him with stabbing panic raining upon his soul: The experiment! How long had it been since he had left them? Looking to his watch, he felt his soul sink into his abdomen with dread. Nearly an hour! They could be practically anywhere in the underground by now if they had decided to wander off. 

Sucking in breath, he quickened his pace down the hallway, taking turns rapidly until he stood outside his bedroom door. He paused for a moment to listen, then burst into his room. Met by silence and stillness, he felt his hopes plummet. 

_ How will I ever find a single monster roaming the underground on my own? Even if I were to ask the Royal Guard for their assistance, there is no record of Subject One’s existence! I would have to make the truth public - and if that somehow reached Sans, I - I… _

Thoroughly lost in the cascade of his anxieties, Gaster barely noticed when movement shifted the covers of his bed; however, when a freckled skull, sockets still half-closed, popped up from under a pillow, the scientist could scarcely contain a sigh of relief. Smiling coolly, the scientist crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed.

“You only just awoke from a months-long slumber, and yet already, you are tired?” he quipped, looking over as S-1 sat up; the oversized turtleneck that had been left for them drooped off one clavicle, almost large enough to fall off entirely. Inwardly, Gaster took a moment to feel relieved that the experiment hadn’t crawled into his bed completely unclothed.

“Probably ‘cuz I only have half the magic in my s-soul as a normal monster,” S-1 replied deftly with an accuracy and certainty that threw Gaster off-balance. “Hey, don’t look so s-surprised, I’m not dumb. Bes-sides - you told S-Sans about the cloning process before you took the s-sample, didn’t you?”

Gaster listened to the other skeleton’s words, expressionless, though impressed by their surety despite their stumbling words. Deciding to see what they would do next, he simply remained silent, watching them kick back the sheets and sit up, looking to the labcoat that laid on the bed next to them.

“But I’m not s-supposed to know that, right?” they ventured, glancing sidelong at Gaster before reaching to lift the labcoat, revealing the clipboard beneath it. Then, they took the recorder out of the coat’s pocket and piled both it and the notes in their lap. “W-while you w-were gone, I decided to catch mys-self up on your entries. Not all of it made s-sense, but I underst-stand that you’re delaying experiments because you need s-someone to s-stop you if things go wrong. Right?”

Rather than answering S-1’s question, Gaster crossly snatched away the clipboard and recorder, glaring the experiment levelly in the sockets. “I do not recall giving you permission to go through my things, Subject One,” he growled, scrolling through the entries on his recorder to ensure that they hadn’t been altered.

“You didn’t forbid it, either,” they pointed out, firm. “If I’m s-supposed to help you, I sh-should know w-what I’m helping w-with, right?” 

After a moment of looking at S-1’s calm expression, Gaster allowed his severity to soften. “I suppose you are correct,” he agreed flatly. For a moment, they seemed surprised at how easily he’d given in; then, they looked away, apprehensive.

“There’s one more thing,” they muttered before looking back to the scientist, their smirk set with grim confidence. “Your notes about me - they’re wrong. I’m not a girl.”

For a moment, Gaster only stared open-jawed at the experiment, processing. Then, he inclined his head every so slightly, looking down at his notes. “Biologically, you-” he started, only to be cut off by the sound of magic lighting up in S-1’s skull as their expression turned severe.

“Listen, just ‘cuz your s-stupid machine made me wrong, doesn’t mean I’m a girl!” they all but shouted the words, their voice pitching up as they let anger raise its volume. 

“What are you, then?” Gaster questioned after a moment’s pause.

For a brief moment, S-1’s expression remained alight with passionate anger; then, they mirrored the other’s puzzled expression. “A boy,” he spat out flatly - as if it had been obvious all along - before adding more softly, “like Sans, and you.”

Sitting up straighter on the bed, Gaster reached over to his bedside table and took a pen off it, scribbling out pronouns in his notes for a few minutes, acutely aware of the other skeleton’s eyes trained on him, watching closely. Once done, he turned back to the boy, tipping his head to the side slightly.

“Very well, I will refer to you as such from here on,” Gaster assured him, nodding. “I apologize for my oversight. Now, onto our next task: I think that you will agree when I say that you cannot be called “Subject One,” forever, so - would you like to decide on what others shall call you? It is not customary to decide one’s own name, however, this is not a typical situation.”

Caught off-guard, the nameless skeleton only stared back at Gaster for a few moments, open-mouthed; then, he shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know any s-s-skeleton names, except yours and S-Sans’. They’re both font names, and I don’t know any others.”

After a moment to consider, Gaster set aside his clipboard and stood up decisively. “I will give you a copy of a historian’s records, and you may browse them at your leisure. She took great care in recreating them as closely as possible. In the meantime, I must run basic diagnostics on your soul before I begin mapping it for the bionics.”

Nodding, the experiment stood from the bed and circled around it to Gaster’s side, holding onto his hand and waiting for the taller skeleton to guide him. After an uncertain hesitation, Gaster squeezed the boy’s hand once and pulled him off on a detour to the next room down - the adjoining office and kitchen - and opened up the records that Portulaca had attempted to recreate during her time underground. Hovering close to Gaster’s side, S-1’s eyes scanned the folder’s name: Portie’s Work.

“Tell me about her?” Subject One asked quietly from where he stood by the computer, waiting for the scientist to finish his task of printing off the stack of papers.

“Hm?” Gaster hummed softly, watching the papers flap out of the printer and fall into a neat stack; he had only partially heard the boy’s voice, but pulled his attention back to him now.

“Portie. Tell me about her?”

Looking for a distraction, Gaster picked up the sheet of paper that had just settled on top of the stack and looked at the text, carefully recreated, before his eyes inevitably drifted down the page to stilted, small handwriting sprawled out in a footnote with a brief history of the font above. He closed his eyes, but behind his sockets, he could still see the writing, but now there was a slight bone frame leaned over it, a blanket draped over shoulders, the smell of hot cocoa filling the air; a soft smile as she looked back to greet him when he walked through the door, brushing snowflakes off the shoulders of his jacket.

The scientist opened his eyes and turned back to the other skeleton, surveying his innocently curious face, yet finding himself strangely unable to speak.

“Is that a font name? Portie?” the boy pressed.

Slowly, Gaster turned his back again, placing the paper back face-down in the printer. That question was easy enough to answer. “No, it is short for Portulaca, which is a flower which grows on the surface. You see, the Font clan was not the only clan of skeletons. For much of recorded history, two clans existed separate from one-another; sometimes sparring, sometimes cooperating and intermixing. Like myself, Portulaca was born in a time when tensions ran high between the clans.”

“The Font clan was traditionally made up of proud scholars; the others studied nature and lived close alongside it, taking their names from the flora and fauna they coexisted with. Portulaca’s father, M.V Boli, was considered a traitor due to the fact he fled the Font clan to live among the “savages” in the wilds - and that is how she came to take a name from their clan, though her lineage and calling was linked more closely to the Font clan.”

“Boli?” Subject One echoed, his eyes widening as he looked up at Gaster. Then he repeated, more quietly to himself, “M.V Boli.”

Gaster reached back and picked up the stack of papers, leafing through them until he reached the font that he was seeking; then, he extended the paper to the boy. “This was his Font. Ignore the footnote, it is not ve-”

“Coward?” Boli cut off Gaster, taking the paper and squinting at the bottom of the page. “All it s-says is “coward.””

“Portie was not fond of the man,” he explained, studying the boy quietly. Inwardly, he prayed that the boy wasn’t about to do what he feared.

“I like this one,” the experiment announced, looking up to Gaster hopefully, “can I pick this one?”

Looking back down at his gaze, Gaster took the sheet from him and folded it into eighths before handing it back to the boy, nodding. “As you wish,” he said softly, snapping his fingers to conjure a magical hand that cancelled the printing job,  “it is nice to meet you properly, Boli.”

“Nice to meet you too, W-Wingdings Gaster,” Boli returned, his smirk widening as he looked up at the scientist. Then, he cocked his head to the side.“Hey, W-Wingdings, I get. That’s a font. But where does Gaster come from?”

“You are a curious one, are you not?” the tall skeleton commented, placing a hand between Boli’s scapula and ushering the boy out of his office and towards their next destination. Inhaling deeply through his nose and summoning up his patience, he began an explanation. “As I said, I was born in a time when tensions between the skeleton clans ran particularly high. In attempt to quell the rift, the patriarch of the Font clan married off his daughter to the son of the “enemy” patriarch. She was brilliant and capable, yet reduced to a political game piece.”  
“She resented the decision made for her for the remainder of her life, yet still followed her family’s wishes and bore one child with her betrothed - he was given two names: Wingdings, by his mother, and Aster - a flower - by his father,” he continued, feeling his fingertips clench against Boli’s scapula as his hand involuntarily tightened. “Gaster became a nickname, a sort of portmanteau of my two names.”

He felt Boli’s back press against his hand as they boy stopped walking, steepling his fingers in front of his chest nervously before speaking up in a timid voice, “that’s s-sad. Your parents… they didn’t love each other, but they had to have you and grow old and die anyw-w-ways. I’m s-sorry, that w-w-wasn’t fair to you, either.”

Finding that he couldn’t turn back to face him, Gaster simply continued walking down the hallway; the click of Boli’s bone feet against the floor was the only indication that he was following. When they reached the room - which was laid out similarly to the Soul Repair Bay, with a central bed and an overhanging mechanism sporting several soul attachments - Boli hovered in the doorway, uneasy. Paying no attention to the boy’s hesitation, Gaster walked over to the terminal to boot it up, then sauntered over to the examination bed to take down an attachment tipped by a suction cup. Seeing it, Boli took a small step forward into the room.

“W-w-w…” he started, then cleared his throat. “Is this gonna hurt?”

“No, this part will likely only be unpleasant due to the discomfort of having your soul touched,” Gaster reassured the boy, relieved that he crossed the room to the examination table and hoisted himself onto it at these words.“It is the mapping that will be painful, but I am sure you are resilient enough to handle it - furthermore, you are too valuable to risk losing, so I will do my utmost not to harm you.” Avoiding the boy’s gaze after the words - which left him feeling oddly vulnerable - he made a lifting motion towards his chest. “Remove your shirt, please.”

Surprisingly, Boli didn’t hesitate to obey, easily pulling the oversized article of clothing over his head and laying it in his lap. Avoiding the boy’s watching eyes, Gaster touched a hand to the boy’s sternum and focused magic around his soul, drawing it through the bone cage it sat in. With faltering reluctance, he cupped a hand around the pale soul; fighting through his own revulsion, as well as the boy’s televised emotions, he pressed the attachment against the surface of the boy’s soul.

“W-what’s w-wrong?” Boli’s voice was edged with worry as Gaster stepped away quickly, wiping his hands on the front of his labcoat. “Is there s-something w-wrong w-with my s-soul?”

“No, nothing at all,” the taller skeleton managed to respond in a casual voice, but he knew that the emptiness of his sockets would give him away. It was too soon after what he’d just done, he realized; too soon to expose himself to this boy’s foolish innocence, his ignorant care and concern.

“Please, don’t lie to me,” the experiment burst out with surprising conviction, pushing himself to the edge of the bed and reaching out to grab onto the belly of Gaster’s shirt as he tried to step farther away. Instinctively, Gaster’s hand lifted to grip the boy by the wrist, jerking it away. For an instant, he wondered if he could twist his arm far enough back to pull it out of the socket; then, he was letting go, backing away towards the terminal until his tailbone collided with the desk. 

“W-what’s going on?” the boy insisted, desperation appearing in his voice. Gaster only shook his head from side to side, trying to clear the darkness that buzzed about his skull like flies. For a moment, he shut his sockets tightly, and when he opened them again, Boli was standing in front of him, clutching the turtleneck to his chest to cover himself as best he could. “Did I do s-something wrong?”

“Sit back down,” he snapped back to the boy, taking a step away from the desk and attempting to circle around the opposite direction to sit at the monitor. Before he could move beyond the range of the boy’s reach, limited by the wire extending from his soul, he felt a hand pull on the back of shirt. 

Swifter than his mind could catch up, Gaster swept a hand violently behind him, feeling it strike off the smooth bone of Boli’s cheek with a near-deafening  _ crack.  _ It was the sound more than anything that made him realize what he’d done and he turned around, curling the hand that had collided with Boli’s face against his chest.

For several moments, the boy only stared in shock, processing; then, his base instincts won out and tears welled up in his eyes, his chest beginning to quake with infantile sobs that he could scarcely control. Gaster watched him clutch his hands to his face, emotionless, wondering: was it the sensation of pain or the feeling of betrayal that brought on his tears?

“Are you going to continue to disobey me, or do you want to make this worse?” the words, a century-old echo of a cold and impatient mother, found their way out of Gaster’s mouth.

Quivering as he tried to control his breathing, Boli slowly backed up to the examination table and lifted himself onto it. Both skeletons were silent for some time while Gaster stared into the monitor expressionlessly, struggling to see the numbers through vision that seemed obscured by fog.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” the boy on the table burst out suddenly; Gaster looked up from his task slowly, robotically, to take him in. Even from where he stood, he swore he could still feel it; the concern flooding off his soul, pleading for a conversation, bleeding compassion. 

“We are done,” he announced, walking back over to where Boli sat and tugging the attachment off his soul. “Do what you please for the rest of the evening; I have work to do. We will commence the soul mapping tomorrow,” with these words, he headed back towards the door.

“W-wait, can’t I help? That’s w-w-why I’m here, right?” the boy called after him. When Gaster continued walking, his face contorted with the beginnings of a sob. “No, don’t leave-”

The door to the examination room slammed shut and Gaster rushed away from it, burying his face in his palms as he walked towards the Underlab elevator.  _ I wanted him to be obedient, certainly, but why… why?  _ Realizing that he didn’t even know the question to ask, he stopped in his tracks in front of the elevator, touching his hand to the false wall.

There was one monster who could manipulate a situation he could not: his unwilling ghostly guest. But it felt too soon to ask anything of them; even a conversation. Drawing a deep breath, he instead detoured back to his bedroom, giving the room he’d left Boli in a wide berth. He had accomplished enough for one day; a talk with Shade could wait until he'd administered his DT shot and given himself at least a couple hours to recuperate.


	19. Subterfuge

The smell of garlic and tomato sauce filled the stale hallways of the Underlab, following Gaster on his path from Angel’s room to Ilea’s, then at last to Shade’s, depositing meals along the way. He pretended to be deaf to Ilea’s pleading through the door, though listened for any sign that Angel was still breathing.

Reminding himself to check the security camera watching her room later, he hesitated outside Shade’s door, anxiety coiling between his ribs. There was no way to predict what waited for him behind the door; perhaps they had even managed to break free of the plexiglass chamber and escape. Knowing them, they were more than capable of doing so, even in such a short time.

Briefly, he considered peering in through the meal slot to scout the situation but quickly decided it would be damaging to his intent; he needed to appear in absolute control. With a steadying breath, he twisted the doorknob and let the door swing open, feigning confidence in his straight posture and slow gait as he stepped in, inwardly preparing for an attack.

“Doesn’t room service usually knock?” Shade asked from where they lay in the middle of the stone floor, staring up at the ceiling. With their dark body enveloped around their soul prison, they almost appeared normal; until, that was, they floated upright into a “standing” position, leaving the chamber resting on the stone floor. 

Rather than answering, Gaster nudged the door shut behind him with his foot and placed the last plate on the tray onto the table, then gestured to it. Shade’s expression was difficult to read as they formed a hand to lift the soul chamber into the chair and settling back over it, looking over the plate. Finally, the scientist managed to discern their expression as curious as they turned their attention back to him.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” their voice was casual when they spoke at last, picking up the fork from where it was stabbed into a mound of noodles and mixing the sauce in. After a moment of this, they looked back to read his expression, frowning before tentatively twirling the fork and picking up a small mouthful, carrying it to their mouth and slurping it up. “It’s actually not bad, either,” they added, shooting another uncertain look at the silent skeleton.

At that point, Gaster knew that they knew something was off. But he remained steady in his stoicness, sitting in the second chair opposite Shade and nodding slightly. “Naturally. I have lived a primarily solitary life - of course I am able to make a palatable meal,” he spoke flatly; beyond his control, an edge of wariness made its way into his voice. 

For a moment the two monsters stared at each other, silent, each trying to decode the other’s intention; then, at last, Shade looked back down to their meal, continuing to eat until they were finished. Only then did they look back to Gaster, their mouth widening into a grin.

“So, is it time to start the experiment?” they asked, almost eagerly. Taken aback, Gaster sat up straighter in his chair and forced his expression into neutrality. 

“In due time. I have certain things that I must tend to first,” he replied after a moment, stepping lightly. “Things that, in truth, I may require assistance to complete. Specifically, your assistance.”

Thoughtfully, Shade placed the fork back down onto their plate; their shadowy limb morphed back into their body and they floated up as if to “pace” the room. However, before they could get very far, their soul-strings pulled tight to the chamber and they stopped abruptly, as if remembering, before returning awkwardly to their chair.

“Well?” they asked impatiently once they were resettled. 

“I suppose assistance is not the correct term - what I seek is your input,” Gaster began in a stumbling voice, avoiding their gaze as it hardened, turned colder. “There is an issue with my assistant. You see, I cannot commence this experiment alone for fear of it going terribly wrong. However, I also cannot risk a shred of disobedience. I need to be able to trust the-”

“You mean you need to be able to  _ control _ them,” Shade interrupted suddenly, harshly, after listening to Gaster ramble for a moment. The skeleton held Shade’s gaze for a moment, no longer trying to mask his surprise, before his eyes drifted off to the side, head dipping slightly. “I knew it! Man, I’m good. I should charge you 100 gold an hour for this,” they joked after realizing their suspicions were right, smiling toothily. Weakly, Gaster found himself smirking back.

“At times, I question how a clever monster such as yourself ended up on a snail farm in Waterfall,” Gaster said casually, offhandishly; a way he so rarely spoke. With Shade there was no need for hiding nor disguises - that seemed clear suddenly. This monster had seen his feigned best, his fetid worst; they’d swapped roles and aims to kill one-another, and still sat together as loaded friends, simpering.

“Intentionally,” they responded sharply, tossing their head back slightly before adding, “not everyone wants to live in a dusty, creepy old lab with no family or friends.” 

Briefly, Gaster considered pointing out that he had tried the other path and it hadn’t worked out particularly well for him, but instead he simply shook his head, waiting for Shade to circle back around to the main point of the conversation - he knew that they would once they were done jabbing at him.

“Alright, you know I need more information before I can help you,” Shade sighed after a moment, floating up from their chair and giving their body a firm jerk away from the soul chamber to pull it onto the floor before laying down over top of it again, staring at the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” Gaster wondered with a frown, tipping his head at a forty-five degree angle as he looked down at them.

“I’m waiting for you to start talking so I can start thinking, bro,” they replied, not looking away from the stone above them. Hesitantly, Gaster tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling as well, as if to see if there was a particularly interesting quality to the rock. Then, at last, he puffed out a sigh and gave his head a small nod, preparing. They couldn’t know everything, but they certainly needed to know more.

Groaning quietly, Gaster pushed himself up from the chair and stiffly lowered himself to the floor next to Shade, sprawling out on his back and letting his arms rest above his head, shifting his weight until he found a position in which his bones didn’t protest against the hard floor. 

“Before Asriel and Chara died, I had an assistant named Sans - a skeleton, like myself. I found him when he aged out of the orphanage. He was brilliant and comical and… impressionable,” Gaster felt weight on his chest press down as he began to speak, realizing only then that he had never spoken openly about what had happened. “But when I received Chara’s soul to examine, he attempted to put a stop to my morbid curiosity, neglecting the fact that it it was my -  _ our  _ \- job. So I…” he fell into silence for a moment, tucking a hand behind his skull. 

“I made him forget and I threw him away, but kept pieces thinking that I could remake him -  _ improve  _ him. Create my own Sans, and teach him to play by my rules. I thought that if I could have my way…” 

When Gaster stopped speaking this time, he remained silent for much longer, not daring to turn his head to look at Shade. Minutes ticked by as he tried to organize facts from feelings, to separate lies from secrets. He lost track of time eventually, snapping back to reality only when he felt something soft and amorphous curl against his hand, as if holding it. He jumped and pulled away, realizing too late that it had been an attempt at comfort. 

Unable to look at Shade’s hurt expression, Gaster closed his sockets altogether and took a deep breath, lining up his organized facts yet again.

“My new assistant is going to be entrusted with an incredibly hefty responsibility, as well as being the only free monster who knows the goings-on down here,” the skeleton went on hastily, rubbing the hand Shade had touched with the other, “therefore, I need to know that I am in control. However, rather than fearing me, he seems to…” 

“Seems to…?” Shade echoed as he trailed off yet again, forcing their voice to sound patient.

“He seems to feel compassionate towards me,” he sighed at last, turning his neck to look at Shade reluctantly. “He seeks my affection and becomes distressed when I leave.”

“Wow. Are you stupid, or are you just  _ that  _ emotionally stunted?” Shade almost laughed the words out, but their face quickly lapsed into apologeticness as they realized it was almost certainly the latter. “Look. You’re oversimplifying control here - big time. If you think that making him  _ afraid  _ is the best way to control him, you’re overlooking some of your biggest successes in manipulation.”

A tightening sensation in Gaster’s ribs kept him quiet until the ghost went on.

“Look at me. I’m not stupid, according to you,” Shade began, their midsection bending at a 90-degree angle as they sat up to look at Gaster without craning. “But you managed to trick me down here because you had something that I wanted - a chance to help break the barrier. Meanwhile, Ilea…” the moment they mentioned her name, Shade’s eyes widened and shone slightly brighter. “She’s okay, right?”

“Yes, yes, she is fine. I brought her a meal as well. I would not harm her,” Gaster spoke quickly, immediately grimacing. He awaited Shade’s scorn, but they only nodded slightly, solemnly.

“Ilea’s no different - you have something she wants. Redemption. Validation,” Shade went on after a moment, looking away from the scientist, “and your love.”

For a moment, the word sounded odd with Shade’s inflection; then, Gaster realized that it had been quite a long time since anyone had used the word with that meaning when speaking about him. Fighting the confusion off his face and hoping that they wouldn’t notice, he turned his head away. 

_ *You wonder why you couldn’t realize that yourself. _

_ *You think you must be getting old and dull. _

“So, all you need to do is figure out what your assistant wants and string him along. You’re plenty good at that,” Shade’s tone was light, contradicting the sharpness of their words. Before Gaster could respond, they slyly added, “and I’m guessing you already  _ know  _ what he wants.”

Pushing against the floor, Gaster sat up, then grabbed onto the bedframe to pull himself into a standing position, stifling a groan of pain. “What if what he wants is something that I do not have to give?” he wondered aloud, his abdomen twisting. 

“Fake it,” Shade answered almost immediately, flatly. 

Sighing, Gaster turned away from Shade, starting towards the door. “I thank you for this, Shade. You were correct - I  _ was  _ oversimplifying my solution. Likely because I was subconsciously trying to avoid what is necessary.”

The ghost watched him from their spot on the floor as he stopped in front of the door, smirking slightly as he hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. “That’ll be 50 gold, by the way,” they joked, laying flat on their back once more.

Frowning, Gaster opened the door and let it swing open before stepping outside, pulling it behind him. Before it could shut and lock, though, he let go of the knob and strode off down the hallway, stopping just long enough to open Ilea’s door a crack. Then, he quickened his pace, fleeing the hallway before either of the monsters could track him down.

He hoped that they would be somewhat happier to have one-another.

Once he’d reached the main terminal and locked off the prisoner’s quarters - as well as shutting down access to Angel’s room so that the pair couldn’t free her if she happened to call out - Gaster found himself churning with anxiety. 

Shade couldn’t possibly understand; with Ilea, it was different. It had always  _ been  _ different. He had watched her grow up; saved her. He treasured her almost as he might a daughter, in spite of innumerable boundaries that prevented him from expressing it properly. The emotions that Boli showed and wanted reciprocated were beyond his grasp - had been for decades. He couldn’t even recall losing the ability to feel that way.

Closing his sockets, Gaster stifled a sigh and glanced over Angel’s security footage. She was lying still on the bed, looking at the ceiling, not moving aside from the occasional blink; she hadn’t touched the meal that she had been given. Frowning, Gaster turned away from the screens and made his way down the hallway to where the piece of Chara’s soul was kept.

Unlocking the door, he stepped in and pulled a tube from the refrigerated case they were locked up in, glancing briefly at the dosage before tucking it into his pocket and grabbing an empty syringe gun on his way out.

“Fake it?” he muttered aloud as he walked back towards the elevator, unable to keep agitation from quickening his breaths. “How am I supposed to feign something so foreign?” he continued talking to himself quietly as he opened the elevator and took it back up to the Lab. 

As the door slid open at the destination, he felt a small hand tugging at his sleeve; turning back, he gazed down at the vague red outline that stared back at him, eyes somber.

_ *You remember what it was like to see Toriel look over at you, like she was checking to make sure you’re okay. You remember Portucala’s brilliance, and how her feelings melted into yours when you shared your soul. You remember that you’re determined to do whatever it takes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaster might be a genius yet he's somehow too stupid to be concerned that he's vividly hallucinating a smol murder child. Right, this isn't going to go poorly _at all._


	20. Damage Control

“Boli!” Gaster called out as he reached the hallway leading to the room where he had left the boy the previous day, forcing his voice to sound soft. “Boli, I am sorry,” he said as he pushed open the door only to reveal an empty room. “Boli?” he spoke more quietly now, feeling anxiety light a fire in his gut. He supposed it was to be expected that the boy had wandered off somewhere. Turning back from the room, he drew a deep breath.

_ Undoubtedly back in bed,  _ he thought to himself in reassurance, making his way back to his bedroom, forcing fearful thoughts into the back of his mind. When he turned into the hallway that held his living quarters, he called the boy’s name once more, holding his breath as he awaited a response. Peering into his room and squinting into the darkness, he quickly determined the emptiness of his bed and swung back around, feeling his soul beginning to flutter with panic that he could no longer ignore.

He threw his voice more loudly when he shouted this time, glancing either way down the hallway as he weighed his options. If the boy had been upset enough to run off, where would he go? Being new and unaware of the world, he didn’t have any places of comfort to flee to - all he seemed to find solace in was -  _ Oh. _

Wringing his hands together, Gaster made his way to his office down the hall, leaning his head into the doorway. A puff of relieved air passed through him as he finally spotted Boli, seated at his desk with a headset over his skull, chin resting in his palm as he faced the monitor in front of him, seemingly unaware of the call.  _ Sleeping, perhaps?  _ The scientist wondered, taking a deep breath and bracing himself before rapping his knuckles against the door - hopefully it would be the least startling way to announce his presence. 

The boy still jumped, however, quickly swivelling in the chair whilst pulling the headset off his skull. Seeing Gaster standing in the doorway, he quickly untangled the wires from around his neck and set the headphones aside, standing up.

“U-uh, I’m s-sorry, I w-w-w-” he began, clasping his hands in front of his chest and cowering away as he got stuck on a syllable, struggling to make his tongue obey him.

“Shh,” Gaster whispered, trying to speak as if he were addressing a small child, taking a small step forward and cringing as the boy mirrored the step backwards, bumping his spine against the desk behind him.

“I didn’t mean to-” the boy tried again, only to be cut off as Gaster crossed the room, using one hand to roll the computer chair out of his way as he used the other to lift the boy so that he was sitting on the desk, closer to equal in him in height. “Gaster, w-w-what are you-?”

Ignoring the boy, the other skeleton cut off his words by cupping a hand under his chin, tipping his skull back so that his cheek caught the overhead light and he could see the bruise he’d left more clearly. It was rather swollen, but the blow hadn’t been hard enough to break through the boy’s soft cheekbone, thankfully. He was far too young to boast any facial cracks. 

“If it hurts, I can treat it,” Gaster spoke absently, his voice detached.

“W-what? No, it’s fine!” Boli burst out, bewildered, jerking his head back from Gaster’s hand and glancing nervously up into his sockets. 

“Good. That is… good,” he muttered, quickly breaking eye contact with the boy, looking instead at his computer monitor - as he’d suspected, the boy had been listening through old voice records, taking refuge in the sound of his voice. Giving his head a slight shake, he gestured towards the monitor. “Did you learn anything?”

Hesitantly, the boy glanced over his shoulder at the screen, before shrugging his shoulders, mumbling, “mostly just a lot of bad jokes. S-S-Sans really liked to make puns w-w-while you two w-were w-working, huh?” 

Nodding grimly, Gaster reached over to the mouse and shut down the audio player, then turned his attention back to Boli. “I would not have minded if he ever did any actual work,” he growled, though quickly forced the irritation off his face as Boli leaned away slightly as if anticipating the anger to turn towards him.

Feeling his soul tangle with desperation, Gaster stepped away from Boli and turned away.  _ What am I supposed to do?  _ He pleaded silently, but there was no answer returned. 

“W...W-where did you go?” the boy spoke quietly, as if barely daring to ask, after a long moment of silence, “I looked for you, but you w-were gone.”

“Down,” the scientist muttered, faraway, then turned back to the boy, reaching into his pocket for the capped syringe and tilting it towards the boy, “for this. My Determination shot. Would you like to administer it to me?”

When the words sank in, Boli’s bony hands creaked as they tightened around the edge of the desk he sat on, as if grasping onto something solid to keep his balance. “Like to? W-why w-would I w-” he started, looking quickly from Gaster’s face to the syringe and leaning away. “No, I don’t w-want to hurt you, I’m not going to-”

While he spoke, Gaster placed the syringe on the desk next to Boli’s hand, “now, now, it will not hurt me,” he reassured, bunching up the stomach of his shirt in his hands and lifting it enough to reveal his bottom row of ribs. “Consider it practice for… what you were created for,” he suggested, his voice supple.

“N-no, no,” the boy said, sweeping his hand towards the syringe to push it away before pushing himself off the edge of the desk and standing, attempting to circle past Gaster and retreat. Faltering, the taller skeleton stifled a sigh of frustration.

_ Well, that did not work at all,  _ he thought, melting to the side out of the boy’s way and picking up the needle before turning to watch Boli flee to the doorway; once there, he turned back, seeming less nervous now that he wasn’t cornered.

“W-why don’t you just do it yours-self?” he stumbled, defiance pushing its way into his voice despite the fear that made his legs unsteady.

Switching gears, the scientist shrugged, casual. “It was meant to be a test, but by refusing, I suppose you have already failed, have you not? How disappointing,” he bemoaned, taking a few paces towards the door.

“Oh,” crestfallen, Boli walked out into the hallway and started off in a seemingly random direction, tapping his index fingers together in front of his chest dejectedly. “Uh, can I take that back? I  _ know _ how to do the injection, I just don’t w-want to hur-”

“Enough about this foolish reluctance to harm me!” Gaster burst out at a volume that even he did not expect, cringing an instant later as the boy backed up against the nearest wall, staring at him with huge sockets like a wild animal; but he had already let his anger free and it was not so simple to reign back in. “You cannot be a coward, Boli - someday, you will need to destroy me! You listened to the recordings; you are  _ aware  _ of that!” he continued, only marginally quieter.

Though Gaster was fairly certain that the words didn’t fully sink in with the boy, he was still unsurprised as Boli’s face crumpled and he began to sniffle, his chest rising and falling more rapidly as his breathing escaped his control. Guilt chased away his agitation as quickly as it had come and he pressed a palm into his forehead, closing his sockets briefly.

_ Gods help me,  _ the scientist thought, grinding his teeth together as he stepped forward and slipped his hand around the experiment’s gingerly, pushing the syringe needle-up back into his labcoat with the other hand. Boli responded to the touch quickly, reaching his other hand to Gaster’s and gripping on tightly, wiping the tears away from one socket with the sleeves of the turtleneck and looking upwards with blurry vision.

“I understand that it has been a rather difficult couple of days for you, Boli,” the taller monster sighed, rubbing his spare hand across his face before letting it drop, trying not to appear as exhausted as he felt. “I suppose it is only natural, seeing they are your first days. I should not have placed so much responsibility on you, and I _ certainly _ should not have struck you. I am truly sorry. I do not ask that you forgiv-”

“I w-w-was being annoying,” the other skeleton mumbled over him, squeezing Gaster’s hand and looking off to the side, “it’s my fault.”

Instinct told him to argue, but strategy held back the words; in the end, Gaster only shook his head slightly, glancing either way down the hallway. “You are bound to be exhausted, and it is getting late. I will prepare a bed for you so that you may rest - tomorrow, we will begin the soul mapping. Unless, of course, you… wish to delay.”

_ *You can’t do that! _

Barely able to disguise his startled expression, the scientist pointedly ignored the voice and awaited Boli’s response.

“No, w-we can’t put that off,” the boy sighed, looking down at his feet for a moment before raising his sockets back to Gaster’s, bravening. “Can’t I s-s-stay w-with you tonight?”

“With me?” he echoed, initially blank as the words bounced ineffectively off him. When Boli began to flush green, though, Gaster’s sockets widened slightly and he turned away to hide his expression. “Well, I suppose I do not see why I should decline,” he sighed, “and it will save me the effort of preparing a guest room for you.”

To avoid any further embarrassment for either of them, he decisively led the boy back towards his bedroom, pushing open the door and glancing around briefly, almost as if making sure it was empty before leaving the door open a crack behind them. Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he removed the syringe from his pocket and placed it on the bedside table before sitting, removing his shoes, followed by his labcoat and then his shirt.

Briefly, he took stock of the rapidly recovering cracked rib; even considering the use of a magical salve, it seemed to be healing abnormally quickly. “Hm,” he mused to himself, reaching instinctively towards his recorder.

Realizing that Boli was still hanging uncertainly by the door, wringing his hands anxiously, Gaster darkened.

_ *You did want him to be afraid of you,  _ Chara pointed out from somewhere in the dark.

_ Yes, but Shade has since helped me to see that may be unproductive, _ he returned silently, perplexed. Receiving no response, he shook his head and picked up his recorder, looking over his previously injured hand briefly; it appeared and felt fully recovered. Flopping backwards into a laying position, he let the recorder balance on his sternum.

“Fascinating,” Gaster sighed, curling and uncurling his fingers completely several times to test the mobility in front of his face, “so there may be another use for Determination, as well.”

Clearing his throat, the scientist turned on the recorder and prepared to extend entry four. 

“It appears that in addition to my results with the mice, Determination may have restorative properties. This, however, is not the focus of my studies; merely a footnote,” he spoke formally for a moment as he left the memo for himself, then put the recorder back into sleep mode and, using a magical hand so that he didn’t have to move, set it in its place on his bedside table.

He laid still for a few moments, staring up at the ceiling, before propping himself up with his elbows, looking confusedly to Boli, who was still standing nervously next to the bed; before Gaster could make any remarks, though, he realized that he wasn’t still waiting for a command, but rather, staring, fascinated, at the Boss Monster’s soul.

Frowning, Gaster laid flat again, gesturing towards his table and projecting a hand that brought the injection over to him. After a moment of holding it in a hand, lifted slightly towards the light, he left his arm drop and sighed pointedly.

“Well?” he asked, not sitting up to look at Boli again. 

Gaster felt the boy’s weight on the bed before he entered into his field of vision; kneeling next to his chest, Boli timidly reached his hand towards the syringe, taking it out of the scientist’s open hand and uncapping it. He gave the plunger a small push and expelling a small amount of Determination off the edge of the bed before finally meeting Gaster’s watchful stare.

“Uh, okay,” Boli whispered to himself in reassurance, hovering his spare hand above Gaster’s sternum and focusing magic around the other skeleton’s soul, attempting to draw it out. Paying no mind to the faint tug, Gaster watched casually as the boy began to become flustered.

“Use your hands, perhaps?” the scientist suggested sarcastically once he’d had enough of watching the boy struggle. 

“You mean, touch your s-soul? Is that okay?” Boli gasped, putting his spare hand against his own chest, eyes wide with anxiety.

“By suggesting that, did I not imply it was?” Gaster pointed out, making no move to assist the boy; instead, he closed his sockets and awaited his next move.

Movements slowed by reluctance, the young skeleton shifted closer to Gaster’s chest and reached a hand beneath his sternum, curling his fingers around the other monster’s soul gingerly and pulling it closer to himself. Hearing Gaster gasp softly at the touch, his face flushed; then, he tightened his grip on the soul, trying to control his tremoring hands in the wake of its power.

Glancing briefly to Gaster face to read his face, but finding nothing but closed sockets and a peaceful expression, the boy took a deep breath and returned his focus to the soul. “Just need to…” he muttered to himself, swallowing hard.

Sighing languidly, Gaster arched his back up towards the boy’s hands. “That is enough teasing, now, Boli,” he crooned with a smirk, rolling onto his side to watch him. “I am tired. I want to go to bed, and you are not helping,” he added, rolling his eyes at Boli’s confused expression.

Nodding firmly, the boy firmly embedded the needlepoint into Gaster’s soul and drained the syringe slowly before pulling it back, looking expectantly to him for feedback. The scientist laid perfectly still for a few moments, sockets closed, before letting out a small, contented sigh and moving his hand to Boli’s, pushing it away from his soul.

“There, that was not so hard, was it?” he purred, rolling over onto his back again and sweeping his soul back into his chest cavity with a dismissive gesture. Puzzled, Boli set the syringe back on the bedside table and shrugged his shoulders.

“Guess not,” he mumbled, tapping his chin with a finger briefly, thoughtful. “Uh, w-what does it feel like? The Determination…?”

Gaster opened his sockets briefly, looking at the ceiling blankly, before closing them again. He knew he couldn’t possibly tell the boy the truth; that it felt like a delicious, welcoming emptiness - like a temporary emotional death. “It feels like I am very tired, and I am ‘determined’ to rest,” he muttered, pulling a sheet over his body to conceal himself before unbuttoning his pants and removing them, tossing them onto the floor and curling the sheet more tightly around his bones.

Hesitantly, Boli shifted slightly closer to the other skeleton and let himself fall onto his back, looking up at the ceiling with his arms splayed over his head. Aside from Gaster’s steady breaths, the only sound that he could hear - though it was a strain to detect at all - was a distant hum from the CORE. Inexplicably, lying close to Gaster, warm and wrapped in his sterile chemical-like smell, he felt more awake than he had in his short existence; his mind was alive with questions.

Why had Gaster asked him to administer the injection? Was it due to trust, or genuinely for the sake of practice? And if trust had spurned Gaster to ask, what had driven him to request that Boli touch his soul - he could have drawn it out himself - and why had exhibitioned his pleasure at the fleeting touch?

Abdomen churning, Boli pulled a stray sheet over himself and rolled over to face Gaster, reaching out a hand that hovered a hair’s width away from his face before hesitating, instead bunching the loose fabric hanging over the other skeleton’s shoulder in his fist. Feeling the sheet pull tighter, Gaster’s sockets instantly opened, glowing an eerie dark purple in the dimness.

Flinching, the experiment sharply pulled his hand away and averted his eyes, trying to form an apology; but, before he could speak, one of Gaster’s hands had found its way to his ribcage and pulled him until he was pressed against the scientist, almost uncomfortably close. Fighting the instinct that told him to strain backwards against the pull, Boli surrendered, nestling his head under Gaster’s chin and gazing into his chest cavity; he had a perfect vantage point to see the faint glow of the soul in his chest.

“Do you… like me?” Boli wondered aloud, his voice on the edge of being audible and being lost.

Rather than answering, Gaster tucked his chin in slightly to graze his teeth across the top of the boy’s skull, lightly running his fingers down one side of the boy’s ribcage. “Get some rest, Boli; tomorrow will be more difficult than yesterday.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaster's playing a pretty risky game here.
> 
> Softcore smut warning ahead dudes.


	21. "What he wants."

 

It wasn’t often that Gaster slept until when the power automatically switched to the day cycle over the lab to bathe it in light, but under the effects of Determination, he seemed to sleep more soundly each night - dreamlessly, even. When the light outside the cracked door sprang up with the  _ clack  _ of a fuse automatically flipping on, though, he awoke immediately, with a start. Reacting to the movement, the pile of sheets next to Gaster burst up as well, causing him to nearly push himself off the edge of the bed in shock.

Once he had realized that there was no emergency, however, Boli soon flopped back over, burrowing his head under a pillow and groaning in complaint. Likewise realizing that the other movement was only the experiment who’d chosen to share his bed, Gaster immediately relaxed. Softening, he reached over with half-closed eyes to pat the pillow over Boli’s head gently before tossing the sheet off himself and standing up, stretching languidly and stifling a moan at the release of tension in his bones. Hearing a shuffling noise behind him, he turned around and flinched away from Boli’s eyes, peering out from beneath the cushion.

Silently, he wondered what the boy found staring at his bare bones, the lights in his eyes drifting slowly down the scientist’s body to rest on the scientist’s pelvic bone - or, more specifically, the dark purple tendril coiling down his femur from where it was seated on his sacrum, tucked out of the way while he slept. 

Stiffening, he contemplated grabbing a sheet to hide himself until he could find clothing, but to do so he would have to move back towards Boli. Instead, uneasily, Gaster turned his back on the boy again, crossing to his dresser and rifling through as quickly as he could for any clothing that wasn’t torn or burned nearly beyond recognition; he was running out of clean clothing to wear, he realized in that moment. 

“Portie was pretty lucky, huh?” Boli mumbled in a sluggish voice thick from sleep, rolling over so that he was in full view, still taking in the sight of Gaster’s bare bones.

“She hated seeing me like this,” Gaster responded without thinking, a cringing hiss slipping between his teeth after letting the words out. 

“W-why…?” the boy wondered, stretching his arms over his head and breaking his gaze away just long enough to close his eyes as he strained to chase the stiffness out of his limbs. 

“I am not exactly put together like… other skeletons,” Gaster muttered, clenching his jaw and tossing aside what was left of his dignity and picking up the pants he’d worn yesterday off the floor and inspecting them briefly to make sure they didn’t have any notable stains.

“Yeah, well, neither am I,” Boli pointed out, his face puckering into a confused expression. “But why are you like that anyways? Sans doesn’t look like that,” he added, realizing only after speaking - very untactfully - that it was not the sort of question anyone should ask.

Stifling a groan, Gaster quickly pulled on the pair of pants in his hands - almost falling over in his haste to do so - before sitting next to Boli and taking a deep breath in preparation. Seeming surprised that he was actually going to receive an answer, the boy sat up quickly, intent.

“Many creatures in nature who do not have the higher brain functions required to be civilized have means by which we might consider brutish to assist in reproduction,” Gaster began, his, voice about as formal as it could possibly be, his spine very straight; he took a deep breath before continuing, “long, long, long ago, the primordial male skeletal monsters had an apparatus used to hold a mate captive during soul merging - but as our minds evolved and our societies became organized, it became unnecessary and rather frowned upon to utilize the structure for its intended purpose and thus, it shrank and changed shape over countless generations until it became the, erm… vestigial structure that you know of from Sans.”

Seeming unfazed by the entire speech, Boli shrugged his shoulders, smirk growing. “Well, I think it’s-” he began, though stopped immediately as Gaster’s face darkened and he turned away. 

“Because I am a Boss Monster from a long line of Boss Monsters, I am genetically similar to ancient skeletons to a much larger degree than you or Sans; therefore, what I have is an  _ unevolved  _ structure and it is  _ disgu _ -”

“Don’t talk about yours-self like that!” the smaller skeleton interrupted, sounding unexpectedly cross. 

“It is! It is  _ disgusting.  _ Portulaca was correct to think so,” Gaster spat, clenching his hands into fists and avoiding Boli’s gaze.

“W-well, I  _ like  _ it. I like  _ you _ ,” the boy asserted firmly, bravely staring into the scientist’s sockets.

Sighing heavily, Gaster stood up from the bed once more and returned to his dresser and pulled out a crumpled cardigan that he pulled on and buttoned up, frowning disdainfully at the dip in the chest that exposed his manubrium. Deciding it would do, he turned back to face the boy again, lifting his chin higher.

“That is the issue, Boli - you do not know any better,” Gaster sighed, giving his head a small, condescending shake and walking towards the bed. “I am educated on the matter, and so-”

“It’s a matter of opinion - you can’t be educated on  _ my  _ opinion!” Boli interrupted, the corners of his mouth puckering as he growled the words. Shocked, the scientist halted his advance and tipped his head to the side slightly as if intrigued.

“Goodness, are you feeling  _ argumentative  _ this morning,” Gaster remarked, his words slowing as he strode forward one long step, towering over the boy and smiling as his slim shadow blotted out the light from the door behind him. Bending slightly to lean over him, he ran a finger over the boy’s bruised cheek. “Are you looking to get a matching set?” he sneered through his teeth.

Instead of flinching away, Boli lifted his head towards Gaster’s, hovering his mouth as closely to the other skeleton’s as he could without rising from his sitting position and half-closing his eyes amorously. Freezing, the malice vanished from the scientist’s face and he leaned away abashedly, stepping back.

“Soul mapping!” Gaster burst out, walking to the door and swinging it open, shedding brighter light across the room and ignoring as Boli shielded his eyes and hissed softly. “We must get to the soul mapping - there is no time to waste. The sooner we are able to move onto the Determination experiments on other monsters, the better - for everyone.”

“Guhhh,” groaned Boli, pushing himself to the edge of the bed and standing up slowly, stumbling after the scientist after taking a moment to gain his balance. “Can’t I wake up a little first?” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his sockets with the heels of his hands and nearly crashing into Gaster as he stopped, frowning over his shoulder.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked the boy, looking down the hallway towards the kitchen thoughtfully. Determination had been doing wonders for his ability to sleep since he’d begun taking the injections before bed, and thus, he hadn’t bothered to make himself any for the past several days, but the boy looked as if he hadn’t slept much at all.

Hesitantly, Boli shrugged; then, he nodded his skull slightly, sheepishly. Giving his head a single pat, Gaster led the boy on a detour to the kitchen.

Once Boli’s mug of coffee was done brewing and he had dumped about six spoonfuls of sugar in and at last deemed it satisfactory, Gaster reached into the icebox of the freezer and upturned the ice cube tray over a plastic bag, collecting several before shutting the freezer door and turning to leave.

“Uh, w-what are those for?” Boli asked, watching Gaster with sleepy eyes before following him into the hallway.

“You shall see,” the older skeleton muttered in response, quickening his pace down the hallway towards their destination and ignoring the boy as he dawdled behind, sipping at his scalding coffee.

When they reached the same room that had been used to take basic diagnostics of Boli’s soul, the boy hesitated uneasily outside the door, touching his spare hand lightly to his bruised cheek and avoiding looking in Gaster’s direction. He quickly followed the scientist into the room, however, hoping that he hadn’t noticed his faltering. 

Rather than speaking, Gaster gestured towards the examination table and waited until Boli had clambered onto it before stepping to the table’s side, sighing quietly as he reached up and began rifling through attachments overhead.

“You will need to remove your shirt again,” the scientist muttered after a moment, concealing the attachment in his hand once he’d located it and turning his attention to the boy, somewhat surprised to find that he had immediately obeyed and was pulling the turtleneck over his head and laid it over his lap to cover himself once it was removed. Nodding, he touched his hand to the boy’s sternum and prepared to draw out his soul.

“W-wait, you s-said this w-was going to hurt, didn’t you?” Boli stammered as his soul hovered out of his ribcage obediently into Gaster’s open hand. “W-w-what part of this is gonna hurt, exactly?”

Shrugging his shoulders casually, Gaster opened his hand to reveal a needle, glowing bright with magic, seated in his hand. “The part in which I skewer your soul with a needle,” he answered, tightening his grip on the boy’s soul as he attempted to push himself away and striking the needlepoint into his soul with swift accuracy. Pretending not to hear the boy’s shriek of pain, Gaster released his soul and wiped his hands on the front of his shirt. 

“W-w-why!?” the boy burst out, pressing a hand into his sternum and blinking away tears. “Couldn’t you have given me some w-warning?”

“Yes, I suppose I could have, but then you would have dithered and whined,” sighed Gaster, thrusting the plastic bag of ice cubes into Boli’s lap and turning to walk to the terminal. Once he was sitting before the monitor, he glanced over the screen to the boy’s confused expression, clearing his throat.

“Before I begin mapping for the main source of your magic, I will need to locate and mark off the entire pain region of your soul. This is very important, Boli. For me to do this, you will need to have a consistent, preferably low-level pain input - that is what the ice cubes are for. I will need you to hold onto one tightly for as long as you can while I follow the border of the region activated as thoroughly as possible. If not done properly, I could unintentionally send an impulse to the pain center of your soul later and severely hurt you. Do you understand?”

Remaining attentive through the entire explanation, Boli quickly nodded his head when prompted before rolling a pair of ice cubes out of the plastic bag into his palm, closing his head firmly. After a moment, he returned his attention to Gaster, watching as his expression changed to one of calm concentration and he began typing swiftly, straightening his posture.

Sighing softly, the boy stared across the room at him. “You look really good w-when you’re concentrating,” he mumbled into his mug, simultaneously hoping that the other skeleton had heard and hoping he hadn’t. Gaster’s face remained completely stoic, however, giving him no indication either way.

“Halfway done, you are doing well,” Gaster spoke up after a minute, glancing up at Boli’s balled-up hand which was beginning to shake, water dripping between the bony digits. 

Another minute ticked by and Boli began to grind his teeth together, squeezing shut his eyes and clenching his fist shut around his mug of coffee tightly. “This didn’t s-s-start out s-so bad,” he hissed quietly, lightly pounding his fist into the leather surface he sat on.

“Alright, I am done,” Gaster announced after another minute had passed, leaning away from the terminal and watching as Boli slowly uncurled his fingers and let the chips of ice that remained unmelted fall to the floor before wiping his palm on the turtleneck and immediately reaching to his coffee mug, using it to warm up his stinging hand. “There, that was not so bad, was it?”

Shrugging, Boli raised the mug to his mouth and took a long sip of the now-cooled coffee and glancing down at the needle piercing his soul briefly. “Does this have to s-s-stay in the entire time? It s-stings.”

“Yes, it does,” Gaster sighed, frowning as he tried to recall whether or not Sans had ever sat in for a soul mapping - he supposed not, seeing as the young skeleton liked to skip tasks that he wasn’t required for. “I suppose you do not know, so I will tell you. The needle’s purpose is to transmit low-level magical impulses into different regions of your soul, which will incite different reactions, such as an involuntary movement or an emotion; when it triggers a magical reaction as well, I will then know which region of your soul your magic emanates from. Because every soul is different, the location differs for every monster - thus, this will be a process of trial and error. If at any point you find yourself feeling too overwhelmed to continue-”

“S-s-skip the fine print,” Boli interrupted, sounding unexpectedly harsh as he set his coffee mug down on a table beside the examination table with a  _ clunk. _ Glancing over to his determined expression, unable to help appearing surprised, Gaster nodded and and turned his attention to the terminal and putting on his glasses after a few moments of squinting at the screen.

“Since you are a skeleton, we will start with your eyes,” the scientist announced after a moment, starting up the program and glancing coolly over the monitor as Boli hissed, shielding his eyes against nonexistent light. “Hm. Well, I suppose I was not expecting it to be that easy,” he muttered, sighing before raising his voice slightly to add, “the remainder of the impulses will be fairly random, following a list of overall likelihood. It should not ta-” he trailed off, though, as Boli nodded, jumping as one of his arms jerked up beyond his control.

Giving his head a small shake, Gaster glanced briefly to the monitor again to read the boy’s vitals; they had jumped up from the beginning of the impulses and remained rapid, panicked. The loss of control could be frightening - the scientist understood that - but this bordered on cowardice. Idly, he glanced back to the boy, taking off his glasses and placing them back in his pocket.

“I don’t like this,” Boli mumbled after a few minutes of stimulated emotions and involuntary movements, wringing his hands together in his lap and looking away. Rather than answering, Gaster looked back to the monitor, frowning. It did seem to be taking an abnormally long time.

“It is okay, Boli, you are doing very well,” Gaster reassured the boy despite the complete lack of sympathy he genuinely felt. Hoping that he had managed to sound somewhat convincing, he kept an eye on Boli’s socket, waiting for it to light up with magic.

Several minutes into the procedure, the relative silence was broken by a high, muffled whimper that caused Gaster to startle, quickly stopping the impulses. Then he rushed to set his glasses back on his face, frowning at the screen. Had he missed fencing off a section of Boli’s pain centre? Silently scolding himself for not being more thorough, he glanced over to the boy, opening his mouth to apologize, only to find that his words caught in his throat at the sight of him.

He didn’t have to look back to the monitor to be certain; it was all too clear to Gaster now by the boy’s splayed-open legs and brightly flushed cheeks. Breath fluttering in his windpipe, he cleared his throat and gave his head a small shake.

“That is not supposed to come up on the list - my apologies, that was-” the skeleton at the terminal began awkwardly, cutting himself off as a small, supplicating moan bubbled out of Boli’s throat and he balled the turtleneck in his lap up in his fists. Gaster cleared his throat again, more firmly this time, ducking slightly as he looked back to the monitor.

“Can you… do that again?” the boy on the examination table asked timidly after several moments; sitting up straight again, Gaster stared at his flushed face for a moment, choking on a protest. There were uncountable reasons why he should decline.

“That was the pleasure region of your soul, Boli. I am not going to waste time with-” he began, grimacing, but quickly trailed off as the boy reclined into a lying position, scowling up at the ceiling. “Are… are you certain that it is what you want?” he asked instead, briefly rubbing a hand across his forehead. 

“W-what do you w-want? Do you w-want me to beg?” the boy interrupted, scraping his fingertips against the sheet over the examination table as he spoke. “You can’t leave me like this, I need-” he stopped, glancing over to the terminal as Gaster’s hands moved so that his fingers rested on the keys, waiting. “ _ Please. _ ”

* _ You can hear the vulnerability in his voice. _

Heat unfurled from Gaster’s soul, coiling down into his pelvic cavity where it pooled up; he could hear his own breath beginning to quicken as he adjusted the output of the impulse to the lowest setting possible and starting it up. Peering past the monitor, he watched expressionlessly as the sensation reached the experiment and his back immediately arched off the table and both hands pressed into his mouth to muffle a moan. 

A small _“hm,_ ” vaguely disapproving, escaped Gaster and he rested his chin in his hands, watching intently. It was only a matter of time before Boli realized that the tiny impulse was far from enough to push him over the edge - he was being teased, not satiated.

Minutes ticked away as the boy’s breathing settled into breathy moans, his face glowing brighter as he strained for release. Finally, he turned his neck to speak to Gaster, but quickly stopped as he read the wicked smirk there; his face darkened with frustration as it dawned on him.

“C’mon, Gaster, it’s not w-working,” when he spoke, his voice shook up and down, but managed to remain free of any hint of the pleasure he was now disguising.

“It is working perfectly from my perspective,” the scientist remarked slyly, leaning away from the keyboard and interlocking his fingers behind his skull and feigning thoughtfulness beneath Boli’s impatient glare. After a few moments, Gaster rolled his eyes and sat back forward, tapping the keyboard once to raise the intensity slightly. 

“Truthfully, I had hoped to do this to you myself at some point, but I suppose your impatience has deprived you of that experience,” he lied in a soft voice, leering across the room as the boy bucked his pelvic bone upwards into nothing frustratedly. “Perhaps I will not give you release at all - do you  _ deserve _ it?”

“ _ Gaster, _ ” the boy’s voice turned slow and sensual as he said the other skeleton’s name, switching up his strategy. Putting a hand on his bare pelvic bone, he gave the scientist a heavy-lidded, amorous glance. “Pleeeeease?”

Despite his intrigue at the attempt, Gaster only felt his resolve harden and he sat back in the chair, watching smugly. “That is not going to convince me, Boli,” he feigned, unable to help feeling perplexed at the heat of arousal that hung around his soul. 

“Okay, I’m s-sorry,” Boli mumbled after another several moments, squeezing his sockets shut and forcing tears out the corners. “I don’t like this anymore. Not like this. S-stop.”

Fabricating surprise, Gaster sat up straight in the desk chair and leaned towards the boy suddenly. “I am  _ sorry,  _ is this not what you wanted?” he crooned, smiling as he heard the other skeleton puff with anger. “Well. You must have misunderstood. I am not doing what  _ you _ want. I, personally, am rather enjoying myself.”

Even as he said these words, guilt and foreboding burned in his chest cavity, warning him: torturing the boy might be entertaining at the moment, but what would it earn him in the long run? Reading the fire in Boli’s eyes silently, he found the answer: resentment.

“However, you have been  _ very  _ well behaved, have you not? You stayed out of trouble while I was away yesterday, and you have been very obedient if a bit  _ rude  _ this morning. I suppose that is enough to give you a say after all, hm?” he spoke lightly, watching the boy’s face soften. “So, you have a choice: I will stop, or I will give you the climax that you desire. Which will it be?”

Before the question was fully out of his mouth, Gaster knew what the boy’s response would be. The stimulation had gone on far too long; the desire for release would be burning in Boli’s soul like hellfire. 

“Gods, please, finish it,” the boy burst out almost before he was done asking.

“As you wish,” Gaster sighed, leaning to the terminal and slowly raising the output, notch by notch, so as to not overwhelm the boy. Though he should have known better, he’d still expected Boli to hold out longer than he did, but within moments, the game was over with a sharp, ecstatic gasp.

Suddenly unable to look away from the monitor, Gaster tried his best not to hear the drawn-out cry of pleasure that fell away into gasping, overwhelmed breaths. Despite his discomfort, Gaster still forced himself to wait until the boy had begun to beg him to stop before cutting off the impulse. Only then did he dare to peer past the screen to the boy.

Strangely, despite Boli’s radiant green afterglow and the blissful expression on his face - marred by the tearstains on his cheeks - Gaster found that he felt nothing but pity. Perhaps it was an old-fashioned ideal, but part of him still held the belief that acts like these should be carried out by monsters who mutually cared for each other - even if that care was only taken for the sake of pleasure. 

It shouldn’t have happened like this.

Seeking refuge from his guilt, Gaster swiftly reached to the keyboard and typed in a new coordinate for an impulse, hands shaking as he sent it out: a tiny shock to Boli’s bonding centre, just enough to release some oxytocin and ease his anxiety.

* _ You’re grooming him. You want him to be attached to you, to  _ need _ you. So that you are in control. Is this your idea of following Shade’s advice? _

Freezing, Gaster pulled his hands away from the keyboard. “N..no, that was not my intention, I only…” he began under his breath, trying to fight the horrible chill that danced down his vertibrae.  _ I was only doing what he wanted. _

  
  


“...Gaster? Gaster!”

Boli called from his seat on the examination table desperately, soul churning. The scientist’s vacant stare remained in place on the monitor, unresponsive, blank. Taking a deep breath, the boy pushed himself into a sitting position on the examination table, summoning up a small burst of spherical magic and tossing it in the direction of the monitor - it bounced off the back of the screen harmlessly with a  _ thunk  _ before dissipating, inciting a jump from the skeleton sitting at the desk.

Blinking a few times, Gaster looked back to the other skeleton across the room, trying to shake off the clinging strings of dissociation which had kept him deaf to the boy’s voice. Meeting his concerned stare from across the room, the scientist attempted to smile reassuringly.

Green. He was stained green with soul aura from the neck down, cheeks still flushed; even his socket was glowing dimly, flickering like it was struggling to stay alight. 

“Are you… are you feeling alright, Boli? Your socket,” Gaster began numbly, standing up unsteadily from the desk chair and putting both hands flat on the desk in front of him, pressing down hard for support.

“Er, w-w-well, the needle in my s-soul is really s-starting to hurt, but uh, I feel,” Boli began nervously, hesitating as Gaster took a small, stumbling step around the desk towards him. “Uh, I feel, w-w-well… good,” he mumbled, closing his glowing socket and mashing the heel of his hand into it firmly before reopening it and looking back to Gaster. “Did it s-s-stop?”

Gaping, Gaster leaned back to look at the monitor before letting out a long, agitated sigh and firmly hitting his forehead with an open palm. “Oh, I am old and dull!” he burst out suddenly, not seeming to notice that he’d startled the experiment waiting on the table. “Your soul is  _ new!  _ It still thinks that it is a child, thus, your magic is based in the bonding centre of your soul. No  _ wonder  _ the algorithm was having trouble determining the location - it was operating under the assumption your soul is fully mature!”

Boli didn’t answer immediately, instead tipping his head thoughtfully. “Right, because expression through magic is tried to parental bonding for infants. But s-s-sometimes monster’s magic is naturally that way even through adulthood, right? W-which is it in my case?”

“I am uncertain,” the scientist confessed, sighing and shutting down the soul mapping program and giving his head a small shake. “However, due to your situation, it will likely be years before your soul settles and moves past this confusion. Obviously, I -  _ we _ \- cannot wait that long, so I will proceed as planned and deal with any obstacles I encounter as they come.”

Still winding down from his earlier experience, Gaster’s words took a moment to sink in with Boli; when they did, his sockets widened slightly and he glanced down to his soul. “But… there could be long-term s-side effects to tampering w-with my magic before my s-soul is fully developed. W-what if-”

“That is neither your concern nor your decision,” Gaster cut the boy off harshly, almost instantly regretting his words. Forcing a more gentle tone into his voice now, he attempted a smile and changed the topic. “Shall we get that needle out of your soul now?”

Though reluctantly, Boli nodded and sat up straighter, puffing out his chest as Gaster crossed the room and stopped in front of him, frowning down at the boy’s soul; his hands had stopped just short of Boli’s ribcage, fingers curling. Hesitantly, Boli glanced downwards as well, grimacing as if he had just noticed the slimy soul aura coating his ribcage and clinging to his soul, pale green against white.

“S-s-sorry, you don’t gotta touch that, I can just-” he began embarrassedly, his voice immediately collapsing into a surprised gasp when Gaster reached forward and firmly took his soul in both hands, rubbing the pads of his thumb lightly over the lubricated surface. Biting down on his index finger’s knuckle, Boli looked back up to Gaster’s sockets, clenching his spare hand against the edge of the examination table.

Briefly, Gaster held the boy’s gaze, wishing he knew what in creation he was doing; fearful, yet full of desire, Boli stared back and wondered the same. Soon losing the strength to look into the boy’s searching sockets, Gaster closed his index finger and thumb around the tail end of the needle attachment and neatly pulled it out of the boy’s soul, letting it drop quickly once it was freed.

Then, in consolation, he gingerly touched his mouth to Boli’s forehead, releasing the boy’s soul and letting his hands fall back to his sides. He quickly realized that the boy’s soul hadn’t retreated back into his ribcage, but instead, continued to hover close to Gaster’s chest as if waiting; crying out loneliness and need and vulnerability.

_ There is nothing for you there, Boli, _ Gaster thought, recoiling away from the projected longings that he couldn’t reciprocate; could scarcely comprehend.  _ That is something I do not have to give. _

“Get up,” Gaster muttered, stepping back to give the boy room to stand from the bed. Obediently, he dropped off the edge and circled out of Gaster’s way, legs still unsteady from pleasure. Swiftly, the scientist reached across the bed to pull up the corners of the sheet covering the leather examination table, bundling them inwards to cover the soul-ejaculate coated centre. Then, using a relatively dry corner, he gave the leather a brief wipe-down.

“S-sorry,” Boli mumbled as he watched Gaster run a disdainful hand over the bare examination table, checking that the worst of the residue had been mopped up. 

Ignoring him, Gaster crumpled the sheet under his arm, leaving the room behind and heading off with an uncertain, cowering Boli in tow. Once he reached his destination - his bedroom - he tossed the sheet onto the floor and walked over to his laundry hamper, picking it up and upturning it over the bed, quickly sorting through colors and fabrics with the assistance of a quartet of magical hands.

Turning his attention to Boli briefly, Gaster held out one of his own hands for the turtleneck clutched to the boy’s chest. He relinquished it with reluctance, fiddling with his hands, no longer certain what to do with them as he stood, bare-boned and stained green in the doorway.

“You had best go get in the shower before the reek of your aura soaks into your bones,” the taller skeleton suggested tactfully, tossing the damp turtleneck onto a pile. Stifling an impatient sigh when Boli didn’t budge, he stiffly growled, “is there a problem?”

“Uh, you’re not gonna leave like last time, are you?” the boy whined quietly, stepping to Gaster’s side and glancing at both his hands before picking the cleanest one to grasp at Gaster’s shirt. Tensing at the touch, the scientist continued his task as if unable to feel it.

“I have many things to _ do,  _ Boli,” he answered after a moment, realizing that the boy wasn’t leaving without an answer. “Even if I was not busy, I would not be watching after you constantly. You are not a baby bones, and I am not here for the purpose of taking care of you.”

“W-why w-won’t you let me help you!?” the experiment exploded, too cross to pay attention to his tone. “Isn’t that w-w-why you  _ made  _ me in the first place? Isn’t that my  _ purpose? _ I know I’m not here to s-sit around and w-wait for you to come back!”

Calmly setting down the last piece of clothing on its respective pile, Gaster turned to look down at Boli; rather than dissipating now that they were done their task, the four magical hands hovered by his shoulders as if readying an attack. His eyes burned cold indigo.

_ *Strike him. Break open his cheek - give him a mark to remember this time. Twist his arm out of the socket. Pull him apart - do it, hurt him, hurt him. _

“I will be here,” he promised the boy; as he spoke, the magical hands disappeared with a  _ puff  _ and he reached behind Boli to pat his scapula, nudging him in the direction of the bathroom.

_ *What was that? _

Initially paying no mind to the question, Gaster bundled a mountain of fabric back into the hamper alongside the green-stained sheet, then dragged it along behind him on a quick trek to the laundry room. 

_ *You’re going to answer me. _

“Warfare,” sighed Gaster aloud, voice soft and dark, “perhaps not the type we are used to, child, but this is nothing more than warfare.”


	22. Handy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drunk!Gaster is a blessing and a curse. ~~Mostly~~ pretty much always a curse.

“Continuation of Entry five. The past four days have been rather productive, though rather exhausting. Despite many setbacks, Subject One - designation: M.V Boli - is nearly ready for the bionic procedure, which will then be followed by calibration. After some consideration, I have decided to take further precautions and adjust the output of the blaster to be particularly fatal to me specifically by calibrating it against my genetic material. To do this, I will need a reasonably sized physical sample of my body to work with.”

Readjusting his weight in the leather seat, Gaster glanced over to where Boli was waiting, pretending to be particularly fascinated with a tray of surgical tools in front of him. “Seeing as Boli cannot seem to conjure the will to hate me, I suppose it is necessary. After all, we cannot have him failing the one task he was made for.”

Glancing up from the tray, Boli swallowed hard. “Gaster, are you s-s-”

Pausing the recording swiftly, Gaster’s expression changed to a glower as he silently berated the boy for is interruption before sighing and continuing speaking into the device. “Due to the sample size necessary, I have very few options, particularly considering that Boli will have to be the one to operate. Thus, I have decided that the best choice is a disk of bone from my palm. Done properly, I should retain full use of the hand; however, even if a mistake were made, the resulting disability could be easily compensated for using my magic.”

Putting the recording on pause once more, Gaster glanced back to Boli as he began to shake his head, becoming frantic.

“N-no, Gaster, I can’t do this,” he mumbled, wiping away a sheen of algae-colored sweat with his labcoat sleeve. “I don’t w-want to hurt you. I can’t-”

“That is exactly why you  _ must  _ do this!” Gaster barked thoughtlessly. “When the time comes that you must end me, your petty feelings will prevent you from striking with the intention to kill! Then… then I will fight back and I  _ will  _ kill you. Do you want that? Do you think  _ I  _ want that?”

Pointedly turning his head in the opposite direction as Boli drifted across the room to his side, Gaster drew a deep breath and turned his arm, palm facing up, on the chair’s arm as Boli caressed his fingers over his forearm before letting his hand rest in the scientist’s. 

“Your sentimentality is the same type that has killed hundreds of monsters and dozens of humans,” Gaster continued, his voice cold and cutting like shards of ice, “your mercy is the same that refused to stop me long ago. You may think that you are “good” in your kindness and in your reluctance to cause pain, but…”

Turning his hand back over, Gaster distracted himself by firmly strapping his own arm into the chair, tightening it until the leather strap creaked. “I need…” he began, avoiding Boli’s gaze as he gave the restraint a final, forceful pull and fastened it. Only then did he meet the boy’s sockets, reaching up to touch his free hand to Boli’s cheek. “I am not as strong as you believe, M.V Boli. I am weary and… weak in a way my soul and LOVE cannot compensate for. I need to be able to rely on you. Can you understand that?”

“You… need…  _ me? _ ” Boli echoed, each word slow and full of wonder.

Moving his free hand to Boli’s, he brought the boy’s hand to his face and brushed his mouth over it in a chaste, respectful gesture. Then, he folded the boy’s hand in his, meeting his gaze with a sincerity and affection that felt foreign - surreal, even. Then he dipped his head in the slightest of nods.

Though he’d expected a reaction along the lines of an embrace, Gaster still stiffened as Boli practically leapt forward, clambering onto the chair clumsily and straddling his lap, pressing against him in a tight hug. Fighting back against his instinctive revulsion at the physical contact, he curled his free arm around the boy’s back and rested his chin in the crook of his neck, breathing deeply. 

For an instant, Gaster felt content to remain like this way, with the experiment’s warmth filling him up, warding off the cold and reality. But soon, all too soon, he felt Boli’s emotions bleeding from the soul in his chest; the same loneliness and hunger as always. Closing his hand around the boy’s spine, he pulled him firmly back to look him in the sockets.

“Strap my other arm, Boli, and let us get through this together,” he ordered in a serious tone, feeling dread sink from his soul into his abdominal cavity as Boli leaned away, his face contorting with anguish. Shoving down his frustration, Gaster searched for a manipulation or persuasion that he could use against the boy; what leverage could be used?

“I know that you can do this. For me? Will you do this for me?” Gaster spoke softly now, cupping Boli’s chin in his hand, holding his skull gingerly so that he couldn’t break eye contact and move away.

Hands shaking, the small skeleton moved both his hands to Gaster’s, pulling it away from his chin and guiding it to the other arm of the operating chair, tightening the arm strap until he could feel the leather cutting off the flow of his magic. Though uncomfortable, it would significantly weaken his ability to conjure a retaliation if he lost control; without that knowledge, he knew he never could have pushed this task onto Boli.

Pulling tentatively at the straps, Gaster nodded calmly and returned his attention to Boli, watching as the boy stood from his lap and crossed the room to pick up the gun-like machine off the surgical tray before walking back over to Gaster, hovering by his side uncertainly; within moments of picking it up, he was trembling so fiercely that his teeth chattered together.

“I believe that I am the one who should be frightened, not you,” Gaster chuckled out the words, offering a patient smile as the boy looked at the device in his hands. Sans had operated it once or twice to cut through hardware, so he knew that the experiment was able to as well.

“You mean… you’re not s-scared?” How can you not be s-s-scared?” Boli’s voice squeaked in surprise, though he seemed to calm slightly at the distraction. “It’s… gonna hurt a lot, isn’t it?”

“Undoubtedly,” the scientist responded flatly, sighing as Boli’s face dropped and he glanced back down at the item in his hands. “However, pain is temporary and necessary and it holds no sway over me. I trust you more than I trust fear, Boli; I trust your knowledge, but more than that, I trust your drive and your instincts. Those things cannot be made in a petri dish, even by me. They are irreplaca-”

Gaster found himself cut off suddenly as Boli bent forward so quickly that he nearly lost his balance, his teeth clanking awkwardly against the scientist’s. A grunt of surprise, muffled by the boy’s mouth pressed against his, burst out of Gaster and he instinctively jerked his head back. Instantly, the boy’s cheekbones flushed bright green.

“S-s-sorry, I don’t know w-what that w-was, I didn’t mean-” he began, but was almost immediately interrupted by a deep, throaty chuckle.

“Well,  _ well,  _ I had not thought you the type to be into bondage,” Gaster teased, twisting his hands with the sound of leather creaking, “and I certainly did not foresee that  _ I _ would be the one tied down.”

“Gaster!” Boli exclaimed in protest, covering his mouth with one hand. The scientist’s only response was a smirk and he leaned forward until his teeth were a mere hair’s width apart from Boli’s, half-shutting his sockets and waiting for the boy to close the distance. He did so quickly with the same uncomfortable haste, though slowly melting into the gesture as he adjusted to the gentle, rhythmic pressing that the other skeleton guided him into.

When Boli leaned back for breath, Gaster opened his sockets slowly, relieved by the expression on the boy’s face; almost serene in its calmness as the faintest green tinge glowed from his socket. Boli, too, nodded, before reaching towards the tray next to the chair and picking up a surgical mouthguard which he tucked neatly into Gaster’s mouth, waiting until he’d adjusted it with his tongue and shut his sockets.

The magic-fueled laser cutter was completely silent when powered up, but Gaster had already decided he didn’t want to see the pain coming. How bad would it be? He’d asked the question numerous times since he’d made the decision the previous night and still had no precise answer. The pain could possibly be beyond words, yet still far from the worst he had endured.

The reaction was instant when the laser touched his hand, slicing clean through the bone to the other side; even stifled by a mouthful of plastic, the scientist’s anguished scream rang clearly down the halls. The darkness behind his sockets flooded red as magic and Determination surged through him, but he pushed it down, opening his sockets just long enough to look at Boli’s face before darkness overtook his vision and he let himself go limp.

The experiment worked silently through a film of sweat that beaded up on his skull, blinking away his tears of guilt so that he could see clearly. Even when Gaster slumped forward, unconscious, he pressed on, steady as a stone.

_ I can do this, I can do this. For him, for him, _ Boli repeated silently to himself; a mantra of desperation and hysteria that carried him onwards to the end. Once the disk of bone was freed, Boli quickly transferred it to the sample case, shaking. Once he’d closed the container, he looked back to Gaster, scrambling for a direction. 

_ What else did he say? What did he tell you? _

_ Healing magic! _ Moving swiftly, the boy unstrapped Gaster’s wrist and pulled the wounded hand close to him, fighting against the fear boiling in his chest cavity, threatening to overwhelm him altogether. Using the sleeve of his labcoat, he wiped away the indigo-colored magical ooze that was coating the wound, exposing raw marrow.

Pulling together all the concentration that he could, Boli held onto his target tightly, focusing on conjuring magic from his soul; Gaster’s words from the morning went through his head and he clung onto them.

_ “All monsters are intrinsically capable of healing magic on some level, though the strength greatly varies. This power grows with kindness and compassion and flickers out with LOVE and rage. My wound will require immediate healing beyond your capabilities, so we must immediately proceed to the Soul Repair Bay afterwards in order to maximize the chances of me retaining full use of my hand.” _

“You don’t know my capabilities,” Boli muttered under his breath, closing his sockets and touching Gaster’s hand to his chest, as close to his soul as he could. When he opened his sockets again, pale green light bled across the room; tendrils like tiny serpents coiled from Boli’s soul, wrapping around the wound tightly.

“ _ I  _ don’t know my capabilities…” the boy said; quieter, gentler. “But for you? For you…”

Light sparked from Boli’s socket like tiny forks of lightning surging from his skull. The healing magic around Gaster’s hand sparkled bright and benevolent for a moment before fizzling out suddenly; darkness slammed shut over Boli’s vision and he collapsed forward onto the arm of the chair, Gaster’s dissected hand still pressed to his chest.

 

The boy awoke in darkness in Gaster’s bedroom with no way to discern how long he had been unconscious. Sitting up, the small skeleton looked around his surroundings, frantically searching for his creator. He spotted him instantly - sitting at the small vanity table in the corner with a pile of papers in front of him and his glasses resting on his face, working by the dim light of a small purple magical crystal.

Hearing Boli sit up, he turned in his chair to smile over at him. Only upon seeing a bottle sitting on the table did the boy realize that the smell of whiskey wreathed the room; involuntarily tensing with fear, though he wasn’t fully certain why, Boli pulled the sheet covering him up to his chin.

“Gaster…?” he ventured timidly, glancing from the scientist’s sockets to the half-empty bottle on the table. “W-why… w-why are you drinking?”

“I am celebrating!” he responded in an uncharacteristically chipper tone. Not seeming to notice the boy’s borderline-terrified expression, he stood unsteadily from his chair, grabbing the bottle from the table before tottering across the room to flop onto the bed next to the boy.

“W-why? W-what happened?” Boli mumbled, searching his memory. The first thing that sprang to his mind was the recollection of his poorly-timed and executed “kiss.” Cringing at himself, he looked to Gaster as he raised a hand, looking through the inch-and-a-half diameter hole in his palm before curling each of his fingers individually.

“I must  _ hand  _ it to you, Boli-” he paused, snorting with laughter, “I underestimated you.”

Uneasily, Boli lowered his hands, dropping his sheet “shield.”

“However, you must not overextend yourself that way ever again,” the scientist added, forcing seriousness onto his vaguely lilac-tinted face.

“Right, of course - I’m s-s-sorry, I w-wasn’t thinking. I just, I s-saw you passed out and I knew I had to-” he trailed off as Gaster upturned the whiskey bottle, draining a gulp before sitting up, smirking crookedly.

“Your instincts certainly came in  _ handy, _ ” he chortled, oblivious - or, if he saw, he didn’t care - of the discomfort plain on the experiment’s face.

“Er… How long w-was I out?” Boli asked, attempting to redirect the topic.

Briefly, Gaster glanced at his watch, squinting to read its face in the darkness. “The rest of the day and… er… most of the night,” he answered after a moment. “I was expecting Asgore to come by and retrieve the soul chambers, but… I suppose I will have to bring them myself tomorrow.”

“Can I come?” Boli blurted; a little too eagerly, he realized too late.

Gaster frowned momentarily, glancing at the bottle in his hand to gauge how much he’d already consumed before guzzling another mouthful.

“S-Sorry, I-”

“Very well,” Gaster interrupted, smiling amiably once more, “however, we obviously cannot tell Asgore I made you in the basement, understood?”

Frowning, Boli quickly bobbed his skull up and down. “Of course, I w-wouldn’t tell anyone w-without your permission,” he promised quickly, eyeing the other skeleton nervously. Silently, he wished that he could predict the scientist’s emotions; however, his intoxication only made Boli even more uncertain of what he would do.

“Jokes aside, I am proud of you, Boli,” the scientist announced out of nowhere after several moments, looking more closely at his hand as he spoke. “And I am glad that you had the courage to take things into your own hands; I did not expect to fall unconscious during the procedure. Because of what you did, it was as if nothing went wrong at all.”

Hesitantly, Boli nodded. “Of course. I w-wasn’t going to just s-sit and do nothing,” he mumbled, sighing at the conflicted feelings that roiled behind his ribs. “All this is reminding me, though, uh…” he began, bravely at first, but the pulse of his soul quickly began to race with fear. 

“All that s-stuff you said earlier… before the s-surgery... w-was any of it real, or…?” he stopped, helpless against what he was trying to verbalize for a moment before gulping and finishing, “or w-were they just w-words… w-words you used to get your w-way?”

Before the question seemed to sink in with Gaster, he had already set the bottle aside on the bedside table. When he turned back to Boli, his face appeared stone-cold sober, emotionless. 

“What’s the difference?” the scientist responded in a sluggish and heavy voice, as if suddenly he could scarcely conjure the energy to speak.

Pain struck Boli’s soul like the point of a needle; pain not only for having words that had meant so much dismissed so carelessly, but pain for Gaster as well. Biting down on a whimper that tried to escape him, Boli turned away quickly.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder, the boy instinctively pulled away, nearly pushing himself off the edge of the bed.

“Please, Boli, come here,” Gaster whispered, closing his hand gently around the other skeleton’s humerus and pulling lightly. Feeling the boy’s resistance weaken, he directed the smaller skeleton into a lying position, faced away, and positioned himself close behind him with Boli’s spine curved comfortably along his front, embracing him warmly. 

“Someday, I will be able to answer that,” the scientist said quietly into the boy’s ear, planting a peck on the back of his skull. “But now… I do not know. I do not know what is real and what is not. I believe that it will be clear to me someday. I…   _ hope _ it is clear to me someday.”

Wiggling back to press tighter against Gaster, Boli quietly muttered, “I already  _ know  _ how I feel.”

Making a point not to respond, Gaster conjured up a magical hand that took the bottlecap from the table he’d been sitting at earlier and capping up his half-consumed bottle before he let his head rest on the pillow, closing his eyes.

“I know I lo-”

“Go back to sleep, Boli,” Gaster interrupted.

Tight in Gaster’s grip, the boy tried to beat down his anxiety. Clearly, the other skeleton had no ill intentions for the night, so why couldn’t he shake the feeling of fear dancing between his ribs? Feeling lost and misled in the dark, Boli stifled a frustrated sigh and closed his sockets tightly, willing himself to return to sleep.

Still sore and strained from the mapping as well as overextending his magic - much to his relief - the boy quickly managed to drop off into unconsciousness.

  
  



	23. Mr. Dad Guy

Morning seemed to arrive minutes later as Boli was awoken by the light overhead flipping on when Gaster entered the room. Hissing, the skeleton on the bed burrowed his head under a mound of pillows and flailed, pulling as many sheets over him as possible in the process.

“Good morning to you, too,” Gaster muttered, walking over to the dresser with his arms burdened by a bundle of neatly folded clothing; a magical hand on either side of him balanced yet more clothing, and a half dozen clothes hangers hung off either arm, Boli-sized labcoats hanging off them. Momentarily, Gaster concentrated on summoning up another hand to open a drawer, but once distracted, one of the other hands became just unsteady enough to tip a few shirts off the top of the stack onto the floor. 

Sighing loudly, Gaster gave up and set down the bundle in his hands at the foot of the bed, then opened up the drawer - which he had emptied out while sorting through clothing the previous day - and neatly tucked away the clothes carried by the first magical hand, which then vanished.

Sitting up, Boli watched curiously as Gaster continued to stack articles away neatly before hanging the smaller labcoats in the closet next to his before at last picking up the couple of scattered shirts that he’d dropped.

After a minute, Boli turned his attention to the pile that had been placed on the bed, picking the first shirt up off the pile and holding it out in front of him to look at it. 

“You will not have to wear that ratty old turtleneck any longer - also, I tracked down the remainder of Sans’ labcoats. Excuse the stains, they are mostly ketchup. I think,” Gaster spoke absently as he patted each of the piles of clothing individually before shutting the drawer.

“Did you sleep at  _ all _ ?” Boli asked, ignoring the scientist’s words and placing the shirt in his hands aside to pick up the next one on the pile, his smirk growing at the sight of the skeleton print covering the black sweater. “You do realize I’m literally already a s-skeleton, right?” he remarked, sarcastic.

Brow furrowing, Gaster looked back at the shirt he was displaying; choosing to ignore Boli’s question in return, he mumbled, “I thought that you would like it,” in a slightly hurt tone.

“Oh, I do!” Boli exclaimed quickly, hugging the sweater against his chest and smiling. “I’m really glad I don’t have to w-wear that dumb turtleneck anymore - it felt like w-wearing a dress.”

Briefly, Gaster only gave Boli a puzzled frown; then, he sighed, nodding. “Of course, because ‘boys don’t wear dresses,’ right?” he muttered, mostly to himself, still frowning as he walked across to the bed and sat, gesturing to the clothing pile in front of Boli. “Well, pick something. We are leaving for the castle as soon as you are prepared.”

Brightening immediately, Boli stood up and yanked the turtleneck over his head, placing it on the bed and instead pulling the skeleton-print sweater over his head, then picked a pair of pants seemingly at random, almost tripping as he pulled them on and buttoned them up. Once dressed, he puffed his chest out proudly, smoothing a hand down the front of his shirt.

Gaster looked the boy up and down, wrestling with a disdainful expression at his choice of clothing, briefly wondering if he had misheard and thought they were going to Grillby’s rather than the  _ castle.  _ In the end, though, he said nothing and turned to leave, shaking his skull dismissively.

“Oh, I can pick s-something else!” the boy exclaimed upon seeing Gaster’s expression, though when the taller skeleton simply walked out of the room, Boli rushed after him, puzzled though obedient. As Gaster led the way purposefully towards a disused wing to gather the soul chambers, Boli bounced up and down with excitement as he walked, clasping his hands together in front of his chest. 

When they left the Lab and entered the full force of Hotland’s heat, Gaster’s expression turned to a grimace and he trekked onwards pointfully towards the elevator; though, he glanced back occasionally as Boli zigzagged excitedly to look at every interesting rock formation or to gaze over the edge of the cliff into the lava below. 

In spite of himself, Gaster couldn’t help but smile. The boy’s enthusiasm and wonder were endearing; familiar, somehow. Suddenly recalling Portulaca’s similar reaction to anything new, though, he felt his expression immediately revert to blankness. 

“Come along, Boli,” he sighed as he reached the elevator and turned to find him dawdling several meters back, staring off into the hazy distance as if he’d heard something. 

“Could w-we go s-see the CORE today?” Boli asked excitedly as he scuttled quickly to Gaster’s side, readjusting the soul chamber he’d been given to carry in his grip and pressing into the elevator beside Gaster and his cart which held the remaining six.

“Unlikely,” Gaster sighed, massaging his temples. “I let you sleep in rather late, and chances are there will be an argument over whether or not we are staying at the castle for tea.”

Admittedly, Gaster was rather anxious to see the king face-to-face - not only given their recent phone call, but the fact that he hadn’t seen him since he’d brought Chara’s soul. Even before that, he couldn’t seem to recall any occasions when he’d genuinely enjoyed the soft-hearted monarch’s company. Being near him had always infected Gaster with the uncomfortable impression that something was terribly wrong.

“Gaster?” Boli’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he inhaled sharply, glancing towards the now-open elevator door. Still slightly dazed, he gave his skull a firm shake and left the space behind, hurrying towards the resort. Once they’d stepped in through the front doors, Gaster held tightly onto the boy’s shoulder with one hand as he circled around the fountain and through the lobby. 

Trying his best not to hear curious mutters from passersby, Gaster guided the boy into yet another elevator that would take them directly to the castle.

Once the door had slid closed, Boli looked up at Gaster, tipping his head to the side. “Are you… okay?” he ventured uneasily.

“Yes, I am fine,” Gaster lied, firing the boy a strained smile. “I am merely tired. I had an eventful morning whilst you slept.”

Smirking through the sharp statement, Boli narrowed his sockets slightly. “Not my fault you didn’t w-wake me up, and not my fault my s-soul’s w-weak,” he muttered, privately hoping that Gaster hadn’t heard.

Glancing at the boy’s expression, somewhere between despondent and irritated, Gaster sighed and reached out a hand to give the boy’s cheek a quick caress. “I am aware, and I apologize for snapping. To be truthful… I am not at my best. Admittedly, I do not feel comfortable around Asgore - though, I do not know why. He has never done anything to hurt me that I recall, yet still, he makes me feel… strange.”

Now becoming worried, Boli looked up at the scientist. “S-strange how?” he asked uneasily, though a hint of jealousy flickered across his face once he realized Gaster wasn’t looking at him, but rather staring away distantly as if lost in memory.

After a long moment in which the only sound was the hum of the elevator, the scientist shrugged helplessly. “I am unsure how to explain. It is almost like an instinct to be wary of him - like he has ill intentions and my intuition is trying to warn me. But that is… foolish. Asgore is most certainly no danger to either of us - and he is nothing but kind.”

Despite his reassuring words, Boli still jumped involuntarily as the elevator door slid open with a  _ whir.  _ Seeing that the entranceway was empty, however, he followed timidly at Gaster’s heels. Striding through the golden corridor outside the lift, Gaster held his head high as birds twittered into silence.

Before Gaster could step into the throne room, a Royal Guard posted outside the door stepped into the scientist’s path, speaking in a voice muffled by their helmet. “State your business.”

“A delivery to Asgore Dreemurr: seven soul chambers,” Gaster replied stiffly, tightening his hands on the handle of his cart and narrowing his sockets as the guard first peered at the six in the chamber, then at Boli, carrying the final one.

“Alright, go on in,” the guard muttered, pointing over their shoulder and leaning against the pillar closest to the door once more.

Before he could step forward, Gaster heard Boli’s soft “umm” - the type that he’d learned meant the boy was about to ask a question he was uncertain about.

“G...Gaster, can I s-stay out here?” the boy stuttered quietly when Gaster turned to face him, looking down at the chamber in his arms. 

“If you wish,” the scientist responded, though puzzled. “However, I am unsure why you joined me if you do not wish to meet the king.”

“I… just w-wanted to s-see the castle, and…” Boli began before leaning forward slightly, lowering his voice to a whisper to add, “and s-stay w-with you.”

Straightening up, Gaster gave the collar of his button-up a firm tug and nodded, taking the final soul chamber from Boli with a magical hand before turning away. He half-expected to hear the boy call after him changing his mind before he disappeared out of sight, but he managed to push the cart into the throne room without interruption. 

Quickly realizing that Asgore was standing before the throne, waiting, Gaster stopped short and glanced over the distance between himself and the king, unable to count how many of  his precious flowers he would crush if he pushed the cart across. Struggling against the sensation of his soul sinking deeper into his ribcage, Gaster smiled and attempted for form words.

“G...Greetings, Asgore,” he managed to sound passably cordial when he spoke, taking the soul chamber from the magical hand hovering next to him and clutching it against his chest, letting the projection fade away. “You did not send anyone to pick up the soul chambers on the agreed upon date, so I-”

“By now you must be aware that we had not one, but two human incursions into my kingdom,” Asgore interrupted, stepping towards Gaster and taking the soul chamber from him with one massive paw, looking it over briefly. 

Trying to control the tremors that were beginning to take him over, Gaster picked another chamber out of the cart and nodded in response.

“Do you also know that they fought my Captain? Yet still she had the courage to face up to them both and the perseverance to bring their souls here before…” Asgore turned his head back towards the rest of the throne room, his chest rising and falling as he drew a heavy breath. “They murdered her; I did not get to say goodbye. She… left behind a daughter.”

Assaulted by words and emotions, Gaster found himself unable to speak, instead staring into the cart as guilt chewed into him. “I am so sorry, Asgore. The humans were surely only trying to defend themselves - and they lost their lives, as well.”

The king shook his maned head from side to side, weary, though an unmistakable flash of anger appeared in his eyes. “They should never had come here!” he growled, reaching back and closing his spare hand around the other chamber Gaster held and ripping it out of his grasp. Suddenly cowering, the skeleton shrank away as the king turned back around, tucking one chamber under his arm so that he could pick up a third.

“I-I can manage the remainder,” the scientist said quickly as Asgore glanced down at the three he was carrying as if contemplating how to balance another. Magic hands quickly sprang forth to carry the rest; then, he trailed after Asgore as the king turned, treading lightly through the flowers and onwards to the Barrier.

“When… when Chara first fell, I often stood here in this room, wishing that I had a way to send them back home. When they grew to be happy here, however, I was overjoyed. Asriel had never smiled so much in his life,” Asgore spoke quietly, looking off into the undulating light of the Barrier, expression grave. “Why? They have already chased us from the world we once shared; why must they continue to take everything from us? From  _ me _ ?”

Though his soul ached, Gaster knew that he couldn’t answer. Instead, he set about the task of placing the soul chambers into the mechanisms that would pull them through the ground for security. They only responded to Asgore’s magic, so once the chambers were attached, there would be no accessing them - an oversight Gaster regretted, but he had never expected even one human to fall. 

Unable to look at the king, Gaster simply held out a hand for each chamber until all seven were secured. Then he stood, brushing dirt off the knees of his pants and looking off to the Barrier, squinting against its confusing, harsh, ever-changing shape.

Once his eyes began to ache from staring at the strange magic, Gaster turned back to look at the king. Asgore, too, turned his attention back to the skeleton, his eyes full of sadness as he at last broke the somber silence.

“I am sure that I already know the answer to this, but… Gaster, would you like to stay for tea?”

For the briefest moment, Gaster glimpsed past the foreboding silhouette that seemed to haunt him, reading Asgore’s melancholy, tired gaze. The hopelessness there was difficult to sympathize with given all that Gaster was trying to look past. The skeleton turned away once more, this time headed back towards the throne room. Before he could return to where his cart waited, he sensed a presence and turned back.

The fallen child stood, nothing more than an outline in the doorway, a tiny hand resting on the frame; he could almost feel sadness emanating off them when they turned back to Gaster, cheeks rosy as they sniffed back their emotions before looking back to Asgore, quietly murmuring out, “dad?” Though they already knew they would go unheard, their hand tightened on the doorframe and their head whipped back around to face the royal scientist, furious expectations alighting in their eyes.

_ *You can help. He is hurting, and you can help,  _ Chara hissed, suddenly standing in front of Gaster rather than by the door. Jumping back, he glanced towards the Barrier room where Asgore had remained, almost as if frozen.

Hollowness aching from his core, the skeleton nodded solemnly to the fallen child, reaching out to put a hand atop their head, though it phased through and they disappeared as if made of smoke that he had simply waved away. Then, he timidly made his way back to the doorway and watched as Asgore raised a massive paw, which then clenched into a fist, and each of the soul chambers retreated into the ground one-by-one with a  _ clank. _

Rather than turning back around immediately, the king continued to stare at the Barrier as if deep in thought, tears wetting the fur around his eyes. Clearing his throat brusquely from his position in the doorway, Gaster averted his sockets as the other monster quickly swiped at his eyes and turned around, brightening with hope.

“Well, are we having that tea or not, my king?”


	24. Tea With Asgore

Though the king’s renewed enthusiasm now that he was having a guest for tea was amusing, Gaster still struggled to push back the anxieties that seemed to clamour for attention in the goat monster’s presence. The dread refused to be shaken off, but he forced himself to smile back at Asgore as they made their way back towards the hall; in the doorway, the skeleton quickly froze.

“My assistant is waiting for me outside, so I cannot stay for very long,” he piped up quickly, causing the taller monster to stop and turn in the doorway, looking puzzled.

“The one who had brought the note? I am surprised that they are still…” Asgore began, trailing off awkwardly before quickly picking up with, “working for you.”

“Oh, this is a new one. He joined me about a week before you requested the soul chambers. He was a significant help in completing them on time,” the scientist explained, relishing how easy it was to lie to this monster. 

Asgore’s naive and trusting nature would make it far too easy for someone to manipulate him - thankfully for him, though, nearly every monster in the Underground respected and even  _ liked  _ him; even more so now that he was offering an eventual key to everyone’s freedom.

By the time Gaster had weaved the explanation, the pair had walked back into the golden corridor. Immediately, Gaster looked around for Boli, spotting him leaned against a pillar halfway down the long hall, sockets closed, seeming unaware of his surroundings. For a brief moment, Gaster thought he had managed to fall asleep; then, his sockets opened to reveal a serene calmness completely foreign to Gaster at the sound of their footsteps and he shifted his attention in their direction.

Unexpectedly, Gaster felt his soul skip a beat. Seeing Boli so calm and comfortable at this distance, free from the scientist’s own influences, he suddenly saw the Sans part of the boy all too clearly. Forgetting how to walk for a moment, he instead hung behind Asgore, letting the king shelter him from view while he brushed away the emotions that shored up unexpectedly.

“Oh… Howdy!” Asgore greeted the boy kindly, sounding surprised. “You must be Gaster’s…”

“Yup, that’s me,” Boli interrupted, standing up straight and closing one socket as he nodded up at Asgore. “M.V Boli, at your service.”

“It is lovely to meet you, Boli. Would you like to join us for tea, perhaps?” Asgore asked, turning back to Gaster with a sheepish smile. Now in Boli’s full view, the scientist avoided the boy’s gaze.

“W-why not?” Boli responded, suddenly seeming uncertain as he looked to Gaster for any indication of whether or not he disapproved. But he gave no signs, simply continuing down the corridor without the other two monsters, his hands tucked neatly behind his tailbone, posture proper and confident.

“Gaster tells me that you have just become his assistant,” Asgore spoke up in a friendly tone, following after the royal scientist. “I hope he’s not working you to the bone.”

Boli stifled a snort, rolling his eyes, before glancing ahead to Gaster’s shape disappearing towards the end of the corridor. For fear of saying something that Gaster didn’t approve of, he picked up his pace to catch up before he answered Asgore.“Nah. He’s a great boss. Maybe someday I’ll even have learned enough to be the next Royal Scientist.”

Seeming surprised by the words, Asgore glanced at Gaster cautiously. Feeling the king’s eyes on him, he smiled coolly.

“You do realize, for that to happen, I would have to die first?” Gaster pointed out, playfulness softening the edges of his voice.

Relaxing at the response, Asgore’s sunny expression returned and he continued down the corridor; the sound of him humming cheerfully became the only company to their footsteps as the trio left the corridor behind, passing through the arched doorway onto the bridge connecting the throne room and Asgore’s home.

Once they’d walked several paces, Boli stopped abruptly and stared out over the city, his sockets growing huge with childlike wonder. “W-wow. I’ve never seen the capital with a view like this,” he marvelled, staring out over the beautiful stone-wrought buildings.

“It looks better from far away,” Asgore admitted, running a hand through his thick, blond-tinted facial fur. “It is very crowded, but there is room for every monster for the time being; although, there have been discussions about converting part of the resort into permanent living space…”

Tuning out the remainder of the conversation - ugh, politics - Gaster walked off ahead until he passed into the entrance of the home, climbing the stairs and looking around the main room with a frown. Sorrowfully wilted yellow flowers adorned a vase at the top of the stairs, shedding yellow petals like tears onto the floor. It was unlike Asgore to neglect to water them.

Soon enough, the odd trio of monsters sat at the dining room table, letting their teas steep in rather awkward silence. Beginning to wish he’d never accepted the invitation, Gaster fiddled with the thread of his teabag.

“So, what has the Great Gaster done since…” Asgore faltered, uncertain, “since we last spoke properly?”

Noting his avoidance of the mention of Toriel, Asriel and Chara’s soul alike, Gaster shrugged, stoic. “Very little of import. Aside from occasional maintenance to the CORE, I have had not had much work to do,” he replied, equally as careful to avoid any sharply placed words regarding his stolen opportunities those months ago. “Your call was quite a welcome relief from boredom,” he added, attempting a smile as he pulled his teabag from his teacup and placed it neatly on the tea saucer.

Boli, following the other skeleton’s lead, did the same; then, he took a small sip from the cup, blinking away tears that sprang into his sockets as he scalded his mouth on the steaming drink. So as not to draw attention to the boy’s embarrassment, Asgore made no comment on the blunder and continued the conversation.

“If you are seeking something to do, the Royal Guard is currently without a captain. I have been attempting to train them entirely on my own since Angel-” Asgore began, hopeful.

“No,” Gaster interrupted, sharp, then took a breath and composed himself. “I am sorry, Asgore, but you know I cannot fight, even to train. My LV…” he trailed off, staring at his reflection in the pale yellowish-green surface of his tea. “I cannot,” he concluded simply, picking up his tea and taking a small sip.

Boli glanced, sidelong and wide-socketed, at Gaster as he made the connection between the Angel mentioned in the voice entries and the one Asgore was speaking of now. Saying nothing, he tried to appear as nonchalant as possible until the topic passed, though the flawless white of his skull seemed to pale even further in horror.

“Boli!” Asgore rumbled suddenly, causing the boy to jump slightly before shrinking down in his seat, avoiding the king’s gaze. “Why don’t you tell me how you came to work for Gaster?”

Careful to remain as neutral as possible, the young skeleton glanced to Gaster as if for guidance; but he said nothing, expression unreadable as he stared past Asgore blankly.

“Er, uh, he…” Boli stumbled, tapping his index fingers together nervously before sighing helplessly. 

“Boli broke into my lab,” Gaster cut in suddenly, smirking good-naturedly. Paying no mind to the surprised gasp from Asgore nor Boli’s stuttering, he faked a rather convincing warm chuckle. “What was it you were looking for? Parts, for this silly devic-”

“Hey, it’s not s-silly!” Boli interrupted, glowering at the other skelton with mock anger. “Really, I think w-with strong enough magic, w-we could break the Barrier! That’s w-why I needed your equipment.”

_ Goodness, he is quick on his feet,  _ Gaster marvelled, silently relieved. Glancing briefly at Asgore’s fascinated expression, he pushed onwards with the lie. “And I have since told you, only soul power can break the Barrier,” he sighed patiently.

“Anyhow, to make a long tale short, he inadvertently broke one of my magic enhancement tools and nearly turned himself into dust in the process. After that ordeal, I did not feel it right to send him off to the capital for further punishment, so I took it upon myself to have him work off the costs of the damage as well as repairing what he had broken. And, well…”

“His debt was repaid several days ago now,” he concluded, glancing at Asgore’s knowing expression. “He is quite a brilliant boy, and I must admit that he has grown on me.”

Flushing at the words, Boli quickly looked away from the scientist, lifting his mug in front of his face to hide the color in his cheeks, though it made for a poor disguise.

“You two certainly make a lovely pair,” Asgore commented, smiling at first, but he quickly lapsed into concern as Boli took in a deep puff of air, his browbone furrowing. “Erm, not that I am implying that you two-”

“Gaster, we’d better go,” Boli interrupted, setting his teacup down calmly and frowning over at the scientist’s surprised expression. “Did you forget? The, uh, compound… w-we left it in the centrifuge and it can’t mix for much longer than a couple hours. That’s w-why we weren’t gonna s-stay at first, right?”

Masking his confusion, Gaster looked down into his tea. Where had he gone wrong? Had the display of affection embarrassed Boli too badly? Did he feel as though the fabricated story reflected poorly on him? Stifling a sigh and scolding himself - though for what, he wasn’t entirely certain - he looked up to Asgore apologetically.

“Yes, of course, how could I allow myself to forget?” he mumbled. “I am sorry, Asgore. I will have to plan another time to sit down with you properly; but for now, I suppose we must go.” 

Now avoiding looking at the other two monsters at the table, he pretended not to hear the king’s disappointed, deflated “oh,” and picked up his own teacup and saucer, as well as Boli’s, carrying them over to the sink. 

“I hope that we can make plans again soon,” Asgore spoke up timidly, standing from his seat, not seeming to notice that Gaster immediately stiffened, stepping closer to Boli. “You are invited, too, Boli,” he added to the smaller skeleton, smiling gently down at him.

“A discussion for a later date,” Gaster blurted out, looking to the entrance to the living room as if measuring the distance before rushing towards it. Boli followed Gaster more slowly, frowning as Asgore scrambled after them, following afterwards to see him out.

His upbringing considered, the King had a tendency to act more like a servant in the castle than the monarch ruling over his kingdom.

“It was nice to meet you,” Asgore spoke up uncertainly once they’d reached the top of the stairs, “you are welcome back any time, Boli, even if it is just to chat.”

Hesitantly, the boy turned back to Asgore, looking up at his kind smile and softening. When the large monster extended a paw for him to shake, Boli shrank back initially, but quickly righted himself and reached up to put his comparatively tiny skeletal hand against Asgore’s, awkwardly shaking his paw before stepping back.

Before Asgore could extend the same pleasantry to him, Gaster instead nodded curtly and turned, leaving the stone-wrought New Home behind. He didn’t slow down until he had returned to the throne room to collect his cart, where he glanced back just long enough to ensure that Boli had followed him.

“He s-seemed really nice,” the experiment spoke up once the elevator door had closed. Gaster’s only response was an absentminded hum of ambiguous meaning.

“S-so, do we have time to go see the CORE?” Boli tried again when the elevator stopped at its destination, but Gaster didn’t answer; instead, he stepped out of the enclosed space, pushing the cart along as he walked back towards Hotland and the Lab. Feeling his soul prickle with disappointment, the small skeleton stifled a sigh and quickened his pace slightly to keep up with the scientist’s longer strides.

“Alright, w-well… w-what _ are  _ we gonna do, then?” he pressed, nervousness edging into his voice. 

“I have work to do,” the scientist muttered back absentmindedly, reaching up to his face to press his fingertips into the crack beneath his eye. Hearing Boli huff with anger, he glanced down at the boy, smirking. “No need to be that way, Boli, it is work involving you this time,” he reassured the indignant skeleton, even surprising himself with his lack of a condescending tone.

It seemed easier with each interaction to fall into camaraderie with Boli; easier still to see that his tactics were paying off. However, it was growing more and more difficult to tell where the coercion and games ended and genuine emotions began. Yet, the importance of keeping track was lost on Gaster in that moment as he put a hand on Boli’s shoulder, returning the smile that was directed up at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~When ur fake relationship with your creation goes too far.~~   
>  What's up with Asgore and Gaster, anyways? I feel a new arc coming on... 
> 
>  
> 
> **Just as a heads up, my writing schedule has been unexpectedly shut down and I'm running pretty darn low on what I have written ahead of this, so... This was probably a long time coming, but updates will be reduced to weekly from here on out, Fridays only. Apologies if anyone was enjoying the biweekly updates, but rushed work is crappy work, ya feel?**


	25. Unravel

Shaking off the morning drowsiness and the clinging burn of Determination in his bones, Gaster pressed on with the task at hand - another early morning, another tedious task to carry out on Boli’s flickering soul. Between cooking meals for the monsters in the Underlab awaiting experimentation and his lengthy Determination-induced slumbers - not to mention Boli’s own frequent naps - it seemed as if there were simply not enough hours in the day to move forward with any sort of efficiency. 

Two long days of working on the bionic chip later, it was finally ready to be inserted into the experiment’s soul. Then, it would be time to calibrate the weapon which was intended to kill him, and his time working so closely with Boli would be over and it would be time to move on. 

Turning away from the bittersweet thoughts, Gaster instead looked to where the boy lay on an examination table beneath the weight of a large x-ray-like device, his soul clamped outside his chest cavity. Unable to help noticing that he looked rather claustrophobic, Gaster sighed and stood from his chair so that he could maintain eye contact with the other skeleton while he spoke.

“This is how it must be: I need you to be honest. If anything I am doing hurts you, let me know immediately,” the royal scientist intoned, unable to help a twinge of anxiety when Boli only looked away, his smirk quivering. “This could potentially be the most dangerous part of this entire process, Boli. Do you-”

“I understand, Gaster,” the boy assured the other skeleton shakily from under the weight of the imaging device resting on his chest. “But, w-what exactly are w-we doing? You didn’t really s-say much before bringing me here. Or… at all…”

“I am about to insert a probe into your soul which will have a dual purpose; it both opens up your magic gates and carries the bionic chip. Then, once I have opened your magic gates with the probe, I will inject your soul with a dye that will react to the magical energy, creating a clear path for me to follow back to the exact location of your magical source.

“If at any point you are in pain after the injection, it most likely points to two possibilities: firstly, that your soul has overloaded with magic and could potentially send off a powerful burst, harming me or my equipment, or, secondly, that your soul is rejecting the foreign matter of the bionic. If the latter happens, all I can do is try to remove the chip again before…”

Tumbling to a halt after his flurry of speech, Gaster took a deep breath and forced a smile at the apprehensive boy. “Do not be afraid. I have done this before,” he said reassuringly - at least, he hoped - before turning his attention back to the terminal. After a moment’s hesitation, he braced his arms against the desk, pushing the entire system across the room to where Boli lay, readjusting the wires on the floor for a moment so that he didn’t trip over them later.

Then, he uncapped the syringe of reactive dye, leaning close to Boli and nodding to him; when he returned the nod, he softly said, “this will sting, then you should not feel anything further than that.” Inserting the needle through a small gap in the side of the imaging device, he judged by Boli’s hiss of pain that he’d met his mark and pushed down the plunger. Then he quickly turned his attention to the image on the terminal, starting up the probe’s program and beginning to type with rapid, confident keystrokes.

Nearly-blinding green light bathed the room without warning, flooding from Boli’s socket and soul. Shielding his eyes against the light, Gaster squinted down at the terminal. “Eighty percent and holding steady,” he announced aloud, not taking his eyes off the screen as he traced the flow of magic in bold green rivulets back to the source.

After a moment, he realized that he could hear the boy’s panicked breathing - though faint, it was unquestionably there beneath the high-pitched drone of passive magic. “Speak to me, Boli; how are you feeling? Are you hurt?” he urged.

“N-no, n-n… s-s-scared,” he stuttered out the words,  squeezing shut his eyes and shifting from side to side, jostling the probe’s view on the monitor. Biting his tongue to silence a reprimand, Gaster conjured up a magical hand to take over at the keyboard and gently touched his own hand to Boli’s, making a shushing noise that he hoped sounded gentle.

“Please try to calm down, Boli. Magic gates are extremely difficult to manipulate to begin with and your fear is taking away what little control I have.” Even as he said these words, he could only watch helplessly as the numbers on the screen continued to steadily rise. “Eighty-four percent and climbing… Boli, please, can you hear me?”

The experiment’s sockets opened once more; one, too flooded with light to look directly at, but the other was drifting, wide and far away with fear. 

_ No, no, no, no… _ Gaster thought desperately, gripping the boy’s hand tightly.  _ What am I supposed to do?  _ He threw out the silent plea for guidance, but no disembodied voice sprang forth from within his head. With no answer, he struggled instead for a logical solution.  _ What has worked before? _

The answer struck him and he leaned over the desk - nearly falling over it in the process - to press his mouth against Boli’s firmly; an “urk!” of surprise told Gaster that the boy was still at least somewhat aware of his surroundings. When he attempted to lean away from the boy, small hands pressed to either side of his face and pulled him back down. 

Stifling his own noise of shock, Gaster gave in and gingerly brushed the boy’s face with his knuckles as their teeth pressed together once again. With his mouth touched to Boli’s, the scientist found that he could hear the boy’s breaths as they slowed and calmed, letting his hands drop away from Gaster’s cheekbones. Boli’s hand then returned to grip Gaster’s, tight as ever. 

Leaning away when he was released, Gaster gently squeezed the boy’s hand and returned his attention to the monitor, rushing to make up for lost time. “Here we are. Just as planned,” Gaster reassured quietly as the probe reached the source of the magic and he deployed the bionic to latch onto the soul wall bordering the magical source. “There. It is done. How do you feel, Boli?”

As he spoke, Gaster began to withdraw the probe; as he did so, Boli’s magic began to naturally fade from his socket and he looked around, seeming receptive to his surroundings once more. 

“If I s-said not good, w-would you kiss me again?” the question might have been a joke if not for the way Boli had mumbled it, looking away. 

Feeling his face heat up, Gaster turned his back to Boli and focused on pushing the desk back to its original position in the room, adjusting it a couple times, particularly intent on the task. 

“Really, though, I don’t feel any different - am I s-supposed to feel different?” the skeleton on the examination table spoke after a moment of embarrassed silence, squirming uncomfortably under the weight of the equipment still seated on his chest.

“No, you would not, I suppose,” Gaster sighed, wringing his hands together as he moved back to Boli’s side and switched the position lock on the imaging gear off so that he could raise it back up, then quickly unclamping Boli’s soul so that it could return to safety. “You will likely not be aware of any change until you access your enhanced magic...”

Now unburdened by equipment, Boli sat up immediately, reaching one hand to his shirt, which he had set aside, while the other rubbed a circular motion over his ribcage where the device had rested heavily on him. After a brief moment of this, he pulled his shirt over his head and looked down at it fondly.

It was a little tight - most likely a child’s size - but the dark grey backdrop with a thick neon green stripe across the chest appealed to him nonetheless. Tugging at the bottom of his shirt nervously, he glanced back to Gaster; seeing his faraway expression, Boli couldn’t help but frown.

“S-so, uh, what now?” Boli ventured, holding a hand in front of his sternum and gesturing outwards to draw out his soul to look at it rather closely. 

“You are not likely to see anything; the bionic chip is, in actuality, only about the size of the tip of a pin,” the scientist spoke absently as he located a case of disinfectant wipes in a drawer and walked back over to the examination table, focusing his attention on wiping the equipment down thoroughly.

“Huh. That’s actually really neat. Did you invent this all by yourself, or…?” Though Boli had learned to be careful of the questions he asked, his curiosity managed to win out in this instance.

To his surprise, Gaster met Boli’s gaze and shook his head in response. “Before my time, the kingdom of monsters had an entire team of Royal Scientists, simultaneously studying different topics and working in tangent to combine their efforts into achievements much greater than I ever could have accomplished on my own.”

“I have progressed some of their technology slightly during my career, but it would be arrogant to say I have even made a scratch on their legacy,” Gaster continued, pulling a second wipe from the case to rub down his own hands. 

“S-so, why’re you the only one now?” Boli wondered, though he found himself cringing immediately when Gaster stiffened, looking up from his hands. “S-sorry, you don’t have to answer that, forget I-”

Crumpling up the cloth in his hand, Gaster let it drop into the waste basket next to the examination table before leaning his palms on the edge of the leather surface, staring at the wall opposite him.

“The knowledge unlocked by the previous Royal Scientists was not always used in a beneficial or moral way. For instance - one scientist who studied the qualities of a human that had stolen the soul of a Boss Monster went on to discover a barrier spell that could only be broken by soul power. That spell was then used against us.”

“ _ Oh, _ ” Boli breathed, feeling his soul sink.

“There were three of us when the humans attacked,” Gaster mused onwards, turning his back to the examination table so that he could sit close to Boli, lifting his hand to his chest and revealing his soul, which he turned gingerly in his hands for a moment before sighing.

“They came for the souls of every Boss Monster they knew of to power the spell, and dusted every monster who was in their way. I only escaped with Asgore and Toriel due to…” he stopped, trailing off. _Due to… how?... why?_ Shaking his head, he continued, “they managed to reap seven Boss Souls in all, including the previous king’s and the other two Royal Scientist’s.”

“That’s absolutely awful,” the boy sighed, leaning his head against Gaster’s arm. “I’m glad you got away, though. You’re everyone’s best hope for freedom.”

At first, a rigidness took over Gaster’s spine and he found himself waiting for a comment to follow - something biting aimed at him or his history - but when no remark ever came, Gaster swept his soul back through his shirt and let his weight sink against Boli in return.

Wrapping an arm around Boli, Gaster planted a peck on his skull. “Thank you, Boli, I think I needed to hear that,” he breathed the words softly over the boy’s head, closing his sockets. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to relish the boy’s warmth against his side and breathe in the scent that hung around him; like green apples.

“You, uh, never answered though,” Boli spoke up, all too soon, interrupting the other skeleton’s reverie. “W-when I asked what’s next, that is.”

Instead of answering, Gaster let himself sink backwards into a laying position on the padded table, his feet still resting flat on the floor as he stretched his arms over his head before reaching over to Boli and grabbing a handful of his shirt, rather forcefully pulling him closer, tucking his arm around the boy’s back.

“Perhaps nothing; perhaps we stay here like this,” Gaster spoke on the edge of audible volume, letting his sockets close and wishing that, for once, Boli would let the moment be rather than asking questions or pulling away.

“...Are you okay?” the insistent voice of his creation soon piped up again, concerned.

“Please, Boli, just let me have a moment.” Opening one socket, the scientist glanced to Boli to read his expression. Inexplicably, he felt less confused - instead, warmer - each time he saw this foolish boy looking back at him with so much care. Surely, there was no other creature in the Underground who could feel such devotion and affection towards a wretch such as himself.

Something fluttered in Gaster’s soul like an insect struggling to find a way out. Words and emotions scrambled together until he no longer knew how to express himself; instead, he pulled Boli’s face close to his, clashing their mouths together almost as tactlessly as Boli’s first attempt. As quickly as he’d initiated, though, Gaster pulled away once more, shaking his head.

“No, that was incorrect, I-” 

He never managed to finish his sentence, though, for an instant later the boy dipped forward, pushing his thumbs into the gap between Gaster’s first and second ribs as he slid his tongue past Gaster’s parted teeth and into his mouth.

Jerking back, the scientist found himself bursting out in an exclamation of Boli’s name, appalled. The boy quickly pulled away, pressing both hands into his sternum. 

After a moment of stunned silence, Gaster sat up and pressed his hands over his sockets, breathing deeply. “Where in the Underground did you learn  _ that? _ ” he growled under his breath.

“I dunno, call it instinct?” Boli mumbled, flushing with shame.

Feeling faraway, Gaster let his hand sink down to his mouth and he held his index and middle digit against his mouth. Portulaca had certainly never taken interest in such vulgar things - nor most other expressions of affection - but in that moment, the scientist’s mind hadn’t leapt to that seeking an answer. Rather, he found himself realizing that  _ nobody  _ had ever kissed him that way as far as he could recall. Pulling himself together the best that he could, Gaster looked back to Boli, letting his hand drop.

“Instinct, hm? Well, what else do these “instincts” of yours direct you towards?” A smirk curved Gaster’s mouth as he all but crooned out the words, turning his spine slightly to face Boli and placing a hand pointedly between the boy’s spread knees to lean on. 

Suddenly blushing furiously, Boli’s fingers spread open against his sternum as if trying to hold his soul within his chest; looking away, he said nothing, for he doubted he could form even a single coherent word in that moment.

Chuckling quietly, Gaster withdrew his hand and faced ahead once more. “I am going to share souls with you someday, Boli,” he mused, staring towards the door. Hearing Boli’s weight shift on the table, he tipped his head slightly. “Does that prospect frighten you?”

“Promise?” Boli’s voice was barely audible when he practically squeaked the word; frowning, Gaster glanced over his shoulder, surprised to find that the boy didn’t look uneasy at all. Rather, his cheeks still glowed green and his pupils seemed brighter, large and full of desire.

Realizing that it was too late to backpedal and pretend that he had been toying with the experiment, he looked away again, staring at the floor tiles below him. 

“Your emotions have a certain allure. But when we share souls, I fear it may be somewhat unpleasant for you. I am a Boss Monster, after all. The intensity of my soul could be...  difficult for you to bear.” 

“Promise?”

Involuntarily, Gaster felt his hands curl into fists against the examination table’s surface; truthfully, he wished that he could make a very different promise to the boy - that it would be a pleasant experience. Romantic, gentle, or whatever Boli desired. Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, the scientist loosened his fists and looked back over to the boy.

“Whenever you are ready,” he assured the boy, reaching across the distance between them to put a hand on his knee. Even as Boli smirked amorously back at him, Gaster found that he couldn’t shake the crawling sensation that weighed on his spine.

Scanning the troubled expression on the scientist’s face, Boli pushed himself to the edge of the examination with a sigh. Inching closer to Gaster’s side once more, he stared vacantly towards the door. 

“Hey, Gaster?” he ventured after a few long moments, his hands fidgeting in his lap. “I’ve been thinking about the s-story you made up to tell Asgore, and I w-wanted to ask…” he hesitated, swallowing hard, “if that w-was really how everything happened… w-would w-we still be…?”

Glancing sidelong at Boli, Gaster wordlessly awaited the rest of the question.

“I mean, w-would you still like me? W-would you still w-want me around?”

_ Like you…?  _ The scientist echoed mentally, wrestling with the phrase. Part of him immediately sprang to a simple truth: No. No, he wouldn’t “like” Boli if he were some boy off the street, no matter how cute and complacent and brilliant. Assuming he even truly “liked” the boy now - it was growing increasingly difficult to ascertain - it was because Gaster had put this boy together and, with no uncertainty,  _ owned _ him.

But those words would not be very strategic.

“I am sure you are aware, Boli, that I find it very difficult to form a genuine bond with anyone,” Gaster began reluctantly, piecing together a partially truthful answer the best he could. “Beyond that, my deeds are not unknown to most - others would not befriend me knowing the crimes that I have committed. Our situation is unique, Boli; nobody would ever feel about me the way that you do, and I…”

The scientist fumbled with the words, avoiding looking at the boy’s face. “I am all you know. If you had a life beyond me - a family, friends - I could not possibly allow myself to develop emotions towards you. As charming as that story was, I could never care for that version of you the way that I do now.”

Boli averted his attention from Gaster, unsure of how the answer sat with him. It came both as a confirmation of his maker’s affections as well as the price; but the latter felt irrelevant in that moment - after all, he had nobody else to find comfort in and could not see the trap he had already been lured neck deep into.

“W-Well, that’s okay. I like things the way they are right now,” Boli announced after a few moments, nodding firmly. “But, when are we going to start the Determination experiments on Angel?”

“Subject Three,” Gaster corrected absentmindedly, grimacing. “It will not be too much longer; perhaps two or three days. I still have to calibrate your blaster and adjust the output against the bone sample tomorrow,” he paused, watching Boli look away frustratedly, “then, perhaps I could take you to see the CORE?”

Immediately brightening, Boli nodded his head had enough that his skull rattled. “I’d like that! The CORE is so fascinating - I don’t know much about it, but I do know it’s your greatest creation! That’s s-so exciting!”

A smile took over his face at the boy’s gushing; gently, he reached forward and took Boli’s hand in his, brushing his fingers across its back. “Was,” he whispered, barely audible, his chest aching.

“Huh?” The boy wondered, tipping his skull to the side as Gaster quickly turned his head away, pulling his hands back into his lap.

“Nothing, Boli; nothing at all,” he muttered distantly, standing from the examination table and taking several paces away, if only to put distance between himself and the experiment.  _ Why is this happening?  _ He wondered, putting a hand against his sternum and trying to push down the emotions that he had allowed to bubble up.

Thinking that Gaster was about to leave the room, Boli scrambled to his feet quickly, moving to the scientist’s side; when he only stared vacantly at the wall near the door, though, Boli tipped his head to the side, frowning.

“Honestly, Gaster, w-what’s bothering you?” Boli sounded unexpectedly frustrated when he spoke; cringing immediately, he shrank back, defensively adding, “you’ve s-seemed s-sort of… off, s-since w-we took the soul chambers to Asgore. I w-wish you w-would talk to me.”

Shaking his head, Gaster forced his legs into motion and left the room behind, staring blankly down at his feet as he walked. 

“C’mon, w-what’s up? Is it a problem with the test s-subjects? Is it me?” the boy pressed, reaching forward with a shaking hand to hold onto Gaster’s as they walked.

Slowing his pace, the scientist shook his skull back and forth wearily. “Please, Boli, leave it be. There are many threads that I do not want to pull on - because they are all that is holding me together. Can you understand that? I will not unravel myself to give you an answer.”

Stunned and confused, Boli quickly gave his skull a firm shake. “No, I’m s-sorry, I w-wasn’t thinking. That was s-selfish, I’m s-sorry,” he blurted, involuntarily flinching as he felt Gaster’s hand tighten around his until it began to ache. 

_ Idiot! _ Boli silently scolded himself, feeling tears burn in his eyes.  _ Things were going so well and I just  _ had  _ to ruin it. I deserve whatever he’s… _

The boy’s runaway thoughts cut off suddenly as Gaster released the boy’s hand and he started off again.

“Gaster…?” Boli ventured, taking a small, stumbling step after him.

The scientist looked back briefly, though his eyes gazed blankly over Boli’s head, trapped somewhere between horror and confusion. “Stay here,” he muttered, then swung around again, walking away; his pace was slow and unsteady, shambling like a poorly-piloted marionette. 

Freezing midstep, the boy felt a shudder rush down his spine. For once, he knew better than to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster.exe has stopped working


	26. I had a Title for this Chapter But Realized it wasn't the Word I was Looking For so Now we have This

_ *You almost managed to ERASE it. Almost. But now… _

Red flooded Gaster’s vision as he staggered towards the elevator, legs shaking. 

_ *You’re going to need a little more Determination to get through this. _

Both of the scientist’s hands rested on the outer panel, no longer in his control. They pushed; crimson overtook all.

When his vision cleared and his thoughts were his own once more, a dark room vaguely resembling a human morgue surrounded him and questions pounded against the inside of his skull, wailing to be answered. Clutching his skull, the scientist managed to carry himself to the wall of metal drawers before sinking forward against it.

What could the memories be? The gaping black spot in his mind had never yawned so largely. What could have been so horrific that he had wiped it from his own mind, yet kept the recollection of the war, of losing the other scientists and scarcely escaping with his own soul? What lurked in the corners of his mind, warning him to fear and cower before King Asgore, who had never harmed a soul?  _ What could it have been, what could it  _ possibly  _ have been? _

Sinking to the floor with his palms dragging along the wall, Gaster buried his face in his hands, trying to breathe as deeply as possible and reign in some semblance of control. Minutes passed before he finally sat up straight to look around the dark room. He visited this room so infrequently that he had trouble recalling its function - though, he didn’t recall how he’d gotten there, either. 

Covering his face once more, Gaster curled up his legs and let the silence overtake him, smothering his fears. When he looked up once more, no longer certain how long he had been immobile, his soul froze with terror; a familiar skeleton stood before him suddenly, materialized from nowhere.

_ Am I… dreaming? Or hallucinating?  _ He wondered, barely able to breathe as a magical orange glow fell across him from shimmering sockets; not one of anger and fire, but of the warmth of a sunset glowing gently on the horizon.

“Portulaca,” he whispered quietly; so quietly that the apparition didn’t seem to hear him, though her socket’s corners crinkled with a smile as he raised his eyes to her.

“Why are you hiding in here, my dear?” the woman asked softly, her sockets round and soft with concern as she knelt in front of him, touching a hand to his knee. When he realized that he could feel the touch, Gaster’s breathing wavered.

Sins weighing on his windpipe all but choked him and he closed his sockets once more, desperately willing the image away.

“Aaaa~ster…” her singsong voice cut into his mind once more despite all his mental fighting and surety that she wasn’t truly there. “I know you can hear me. Give me the disk, Aster.” Her voice grew harsher now and Gaster looked up, tensing.

“What di-?” the scientist began, but before he could finish, his hand opened on its own accord and a small plastic case fell out of his palm onto the floor. Moving quickly, Portulaca picked it up and stood, crossing the room to the far wall where she pulled open one of the drawers set into the wall.

Gaster watched, clutching both hands to his sternum as she slowly rifled through the filed disks, not looking back at him; meanwhile, the scientist tried to flail through the echo in his mind simply repeating:  _ Why? Why? How? How?  _ Yet he could not seem to form a single logical thought.

Finally filing away the disk she’d taken from him, Portulaca walked back to where Gaster sat and extended a hand down to him to help him to his feet. 

Though expecting his hand to phase through, Gaster reached up and took hers; when he actually made contact, though, he felt his breath escape him and closed his hand tightly around hers. Grounding his weight and pulling hard, Gaster unfolded his legs as he dragged the other monster down into his embrace, cradling her in his lap.

“I am sorry,” he whispered softly, closing his sockets. “I am so sorry… Portie…”

“Shh, Aster, I know,” she reassured the other skeleton, leaning away to look into his sockets. Gazing back, he tried to memorize the details of her face; the way the corners of her eyes were lined with hairline fractures from age and smiling and squinting at the sun - the way her expression always appeared warm, even when she looked on him sternly.

“I know you want to know what’s on the disk, but I made a promise to keep you away from it. You never ask anything from me; this is the least that I could do.”

A rigidness overtook Gaster from head to toe and he released Portulaca, raising both hands into his field of vision; whole. No circle of bone missing from his palm. Fighting to breathe, he brought one hand up to his left eye, running his fingertips down the smooth, uncracked bone of his cheek.

“Yes… of course. The disk,” he mumbled, pressing a hand into his face and breathing deeply, his mind finally beginning to slow down as he finally realized where and when he was.

“Remind me why I allowed you to talk me into keeping any of those worthless things in the first place,” he muttered, tensing as Portulaca rearranged herself into a more comfortable position in his lap, her pupils looking up to the ceiling as she rolled her eyes.

“I guess you must like me or something,” she remarked playfully, leaning her skull back against his sternum to look up at him. “Though, I’d rather think you agreed out of respect for my work.”

“It can be both,” Gaster responded softly, wrapping his arms around her ribcage and breathing deeply, holding her scent close; like freshly cut grass and mangos. He soon lost track of time, almost feeling as if he could doze off.

“Aster, I can’t stay any longer; I have a class in an hour,” she spoke softly, jerking Gaster out of his reverie as she ran her fingertips between his ulna and radius gently. “And I can’t be late for my own class!” she added, giggling.

“Please don’t go,” the scientist whispered, tightening his grip. 

No. That wasn’t how it had gone; he’d fallen too far off script. Wrong. All wrong. Opening his sockets, he glanced around at his surroundings as they began to shift; then, the pressure in his lap vanished suddenly and he found himself choking on dust that that spread across the room, flowing over him.

“Portulaca!” he cried out, sending her dust flying from his mouth, obscuring his vision. Gasping for breath, he pressed his hands into his face, smothering a cry of anguish; when he had no air left in him, he looked up to watch his surroundings melt away, shifting to darkness and swallowing him whole.

 

“Gaster? Gaster! Oh god, w-what do I do, w-w-what do I… w-w-”

Gasping sharply for air as if he hadn’t been breathing for some time, Gaster awoke with a jolt to the sound of Boli’s desperate pleading and the sensation of hands groping frantically at his ribcage. Once he had filled himself with as much air as possible, Gaster sat up just in time to spew a fluid mixture of dust and magic from his mouth onto the floor next to him. 

Boli reeled away from the effluent, hands flying up to cover his mouth in revulsion as the other skeleton wretched again, though nothing else came up. Choking a few times, Gaster reached up with his labcoat sleeve to wipe it across his mouth before slumping back onto his side with a groan. 

He let his sockets shut after a moment, closing his fingers together through the hole in his palm to remind that he was back in the present; back in control. 

“Uhh, Gaster…?” Boli ventured after a long moment, sounding on the verge of tears. “Are you gonna be okay?”

When Gaster tried to answer, the only noise that came out was a weak rasping noise; hearing Boli’s alarmed sound, he opened his sockets again and nodded, raising a hand with his thumb pointed towards the ceiling.

“You w-were really upset,” Boli whined, wringing his hands together and blinking tears away. “You w-were yelling for Portie. I didn’t know w-w-what to do… I’m s-sorry. I w-wasn’t any help at all, I’m s-sorry…”

Keeping his hand raised slightly, Gaster firmly clenched it into a fist to signal the boy to stop speaking, pressing his other palm to his forehead. All the boy’s rambling was only making the pain in his skull dig deeper. He didn’t seem to take any note of the signal, however, fretting onwards.

“S-she could’ve helped, S-Sans could’ve helped. W-why’d you w-waste them on me? W-why’d you… w… w-wh…?” though Gaster didn’t open his eyes to look over again, he could tell that the experiment was on the verge of a full-blown breakdown. 

Huffing for breath so that he could form words, Boli managed to gurgle out, “please just tell me w-wh-what I’m s-s-supposed to do.”

Breathing hoarsely, Gaster rolled onto his back so that his gestures were visible, raising a hand to his mouth, managing to form a sign before putting the same fist to his chest.  _ ‘Water. Please.’ _

“Oh!” Boli exclaimed, standing and scurrying away quickly. Listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps, the scientist did all he could to drift off again; his grip on reality was nothing more than a tenuous, thin string to cling to with yawning darkness beneath.

With nothing else to hold onto, Gaster counted the two and a half minutes that passed before he no longer felt like was going to heave shards of his soul and dared to sit up, glancing around through blurred vision. Realizing that he had collapsed directly outside the Underlab elevator, he shuddered; the feeling of nausea returned as his mind inevitably roamed to what might have happened if he had collapsed somewhere where Boli couldn’t find him.

Though, it’d be a satisfying irony if the Underlab had become his own tomb.

Half-closing his sockets and slouching back against the elevator door, the scientist drew in a wheezing breath and cleared his throat, shuddering at the taste of dust particles on his tongue.

Rapid clicking of bone against tile indicated Boli’s return before he turned the corner and in a moment he was knelt in front of Gaster, holding a glass of water out to him. When the scientist didn’t reach up to take it, the boy quickly shifted closer, tipping a sip into the other skeleton’s mouth, managing not to spill more than a couple drops despite his tremoring hands.

When Gaster lifted a hand a few moments later, Boli brought the glass to it, only to falter in confusion as the scientist instead touched his hand to the boy’s face, stroking away the streaks of tears on his cheekbones. Letting his hand drop again, he swallowed the second sip he was offered and stared blankly at the ceiling.

“Are you… dying?” the boy ventured after a few moments, his face contorting with distress.

“Feels that way,” the scientist barely managed to rasp the words audibly, closing his sockets to avoid looking at the boy’s horrified expression. “But… no,” he added, stifling a cough as the words tried to catch in his windpipe.

“Is there anything else I can do?” fretted the boy, tentatively touching Gaster’s arm. “Could I heal you? W-would that help?”

Shaking his head, Gaster opened one socket to look over at the boy. “Too weak,” he rasped, hoping the boy would be able to piece together what he meant; if Boli overexerted his magic and wound up falling unconscious as he had last time, neither of them would be in any shape to help the other. 

Though a look of frustration crossed Boli’s face at the words, he only sighed, offering Gaster another another drink from the glass before sinking from a kneeling position to sit more comfortably, inspecting the scientist’s face closely.

“What… happened?” Gaster whispered after a few minutes, pushing himself into a slightly straighter posture.

“You’re asking  _ me _ ?” Boli scoffed in disbelief, but quickly sobered. Looking away uneasily, he sighed heavily. “Uhh, I w-was asking dumb questions and you left. I thought you w-were mad, s-so I left you alone. But then I heard… w-w-well… heard you calling for  _ her. _ ”

Hearing the jealousy plain in the boy’s voice, Gaster shifted a glare to him.  _ Really? Now?  _ He wondered silently.  _ Now, you are doing this?  _ But he had no energy to form the words to sneer at the boy; instead, he only sighed and shook his skull.

“How long?” he wondered, cringing at the scratching sensation in his throat. “Did I leave?”

Frowning, Boli shrugged helplessly. “W-what, you mean you don’t remember at all?” he asked, needlessly; the answer was clear to him already. “It was a couple hours, I guess, but I don’t think you left. Maybe you just got here and fell down?”

Shaking his head slightly, Gaster let himself slump slightly as if he had to compensate for the mental energy it took to gather his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was reaching the Underlab elevator, then… sockets widening, he reached instinctively to his pocket, pulling out an empty syringe. He tried to let it drop back into his pocket unnoticed, but the appalled expression on Boli’s face told Gaster it was too late.

“Gaster!” Boli exclaimed fiercely. Cringing at the volume, which antagonized the pain in his skull, Gaster surrendered to the boy’s quick lunge, allowing him to take the syringe from his hand. “W-what w-w-were you thinking!? You can’t double-dose yours-s-self and expect to be  _ fine!  _ You could’ve  _ died _ ! And w-w-what would I do then!? W-W-what w-would I…?” his voice lapsed from fury to tearfulness and he threw the syringe in his hand against the wall opposite him, breaking down into tears as the container shattered, sending glass across the floor.

Covering his ear openings and trying to block out the boy’s voice, Gaster curled his legs up to his chest. “I did not… Didn’t mean… I-” he began, words cracking.

“ _ What _ ?” the little skeleton snapped in a fierce voice, rounding on the scientist now. “Didn’t  _ what _ ? Think about anyone else? Didn’t think about the consequences!?”

Feeling his soul ache beyond the physical pain, Gaster let his arms rest at his sides and took in the sight of the boy; righteous anger lighting up his socket neon green, his smirk grim and wicked as he glowered.

“Wh-what’s your excuse? Spit it out, Gaster, cuz I’m waiting.”

Shaking his head helplessly, Gaster shrugged. How could he tell the experiment that he had no memory of taking the second dose of Determination? If Boli knew, he would inevitably grow defensive over every dose, fighting him every step of the way. The cost of honesty was far over his head, no matter how sorely he craved to open up to the boy.

“W-were you  _ trying  _ to kill yourself?” Boli burst out after a moment, but once the words were out, he immediately covered his mouth as if only considering it a possibility in that moment and trying to suck the words out of the air back into his mouth. His anger vanished in an instant and he scrutinized Gaster pleadingly, but the scientist had closed his sockets once more, perfectly stoic and calm. “...Gaster?”

Shaking his head weakly, the scientist dared to look at the boy only after minutes had passed, pain jabbing into his abdomen. If only the magic in Boli’s socket were orange, he could’ve mistaken his brave, passionate yet furious gaze for Portulaca’s. He held the stare as steadily as he could before letting himself droop again.

“I…  _ need  _ you, Gaster. I w-w-wouldn’t be able to live if you left,” the experiment’s voice turned to panic when he didn’t receive a reassuring answer and he clutched at Gaster’s femur, shaking. “You know that, don’t you? How w-would I ever be able to forgive mys-s-... w-who else w-would w-want to live with me? You’re all I have. If you w-were gone, I’d... “

“S-so… please… even if it’s a lie… tell me you w-w-w… you didn’t…” the boy trailed off tearfully, his hands moving from Gaster’s leg to clutch onto his hand instead.

Feeling weaker now than he had since he’d first awoken, Gaster let himself droop over onto his side, pressing both hands to the sides of his skull, pressing his sockets shut as if, by pretending hard enough, he could make Boli disappear.

“Alright. That’s it,” Boli growled, his expression hardening as he reached over to Gaster, pressing both hands hard against the larger monster’s shoulder and managing to roll him onto his back. The scientist didn’t remove his hands from his skull, though his eyes focused on Boli, wide, when the boy swiftly clambered onto his pelvic bone, straddling him and pressing his meager weight squarely onto the weakened skeleton.

“I don’t care what you say anymore, I’m healing you,” the boy hissed, holding a hand above Gaster’s chest and closing his sockets.

Weakly, Gaster reached up and closed his hand around the boy’s wrist, trying to push it away, but his efforts were easily resisted as Boli scarcely shook against the force he managed to muster. 

Ignoring the touch, the small skeleton drew in a calm breath, summoning up a tamed flow of healing magic - nowhere near as forceful as last time he’d used it - and channelled the energy down his arm, through Gaster’s shirt, and directly to his soul. 

“Stop, stop,” Gaster wheezed after a moment, seeing sweat droplets beginning to form on Boli’s skull. “This sort of damage cannot be healed by magic. You are wasting your ti-”

“You’re talking better, aren’t you?” Boli interrupted, his face aglow with pride. A moment later, he allowed Gaster to overpower him, letting his wrist be jerked away to cut off the flow of restorative magic. 

“Why must you always disobey?” the scientist sighed weakly, letting his arm drop and staring up at the boy; his smirk only grew in response, though, and Gaster found that he could only shake his skull helplessly, doing all he could to ward off a smile of his own. “Fine, you were correct, and I was not. You were able to heal me. Now get off of me.”

Rising to his feet with a stifled chuckle, Boli watched in anticipation as the other skeleton first pushed himself into a sitting position, then - using the elevator wall to support him - managed to stand. Wobbling slightly, Gaster took a step forward; in an instant, Boli was at his side, tucking himself beneath Gaster’s arm for whatever meager support he could offer.

“I am going to be angry with you later, you know,” Gaster mumbled, stumbling slowly alongside the boy as they walked towards their bedroom so that Boli could lay the feeble monster down to rest.

“I think I’ll be a little more w-worried when you can stand on your own, Doc.”   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even proofreading these things anymore so sorry if there's typos and stuff.


	27. Archaeology

“Can’t I talk you into another day’s rest? You literally almost  _ died,  _ Gaster. The Underground will understa-”

“I did not ask for your input on the matter, Boli.”

“W-Well, maybe that’s the problem. I know just as well as you whether or not you’re fit to be working!”

“You do not know anything.”

Puffing frustratedly, Boli sat up on what felt like the hundredth different examination table he’d been made to lie on in his short life. “W-Well, that s-settles it. If you’re gonna w-work even though you’re sick, at least let me help you. I’m not useless, and you know-”

Realizing that Gaster was actively ignoring him, the boy became agitated. “C’mon, Gaster, I know you’re not  _ that  _ old, you’re not deaf,” he joked weakly as a last-ditch effort, sighing as he was ignored yet again.

Shaking his head, Gaster kept his attention glued firmly to the screen in front of him, looking away only long enough to use a magical hand to readjust a suction cup attached to Boli’s soul from across the room.

“It’s bad enough that you wouldn’t even take more than one day off,” the skeleton fretted onwards, his voice becoming firmer, “but you’re still gonna keep taking Determination? It’s obviously dangerous for your mental state! You still don’t even remember  _ doing  _ what you did!”

Unresponsive, Gaster reached into his pocket for his reading glasses and slipped them onto his face before beginning to tap on the keyboard.

“Wh-what’re you doing?” Boli asked after a few moments, stifling a sigh when his genuine curiosity was shot down with the same cool indifference as every other effort. “Alright. You know w-what? It’s bad enough that you might’ve tried to  _ kill yourself  _ yesterday and you won’t freakin’ talk to me about it, but now you won’t even explain your experiments to me? I’ve had enough.”

Gaster looked up from the monitor at these words, pointing a finger menacingly at the boy as he raised a hand to the wire running between himself and the receiver. Seeing the gesture, Boli faltered momentarily, then harshened, detaching the suction cup from his soul with a hard tug. Immediately, an error tone began to drone from the machine in front of Gaster.

Watching the figures and inputs in front of him go blank, the scientist fought to keep hold on the slow, boiling frustration that washed up from his soul into his windpipe, making it harder to breathe regularly. He tried to take a deep breath and calm himself, but it seemed to have the opposite effect intended. 

Rather than standing up to reattach the device, he snapped his fingers and a pair of magical hands converged on Boli, one shoving him down against the table while the other attempted to stick the suction cup back onto the boy’s soul. The boy began to thrash immediately, however, making it nearly impossible.

Moments later, the magic shorted out with a fizzle, purple light flickering out of the scientist’s sockets. Clasping his forehead, he stifled a hiss of pain and berated himself for making such a bold attempt; it certainly didn’t help his case to have failed to overpower the little skeleton.

Knowing it was too late to pretend he’d given up on purpose, he silently awaited something to the effect of an “I told you so,” but no words ever came. Instead, he heard the boy stand from the examination table and cross the room to his side. Opening his sockets to glance between his fingers, he sighed heavily at the sight of the boy’s expression.

Somewhere between resoluteness and concern, painfully familiar. As always. Shrugging, the scientist let his hands drop away from his face and looked away.

“This is nothing, Boli,” he sighed, clasping his fingers through the hole in his hand. “Please, just let me do my job. I do not have the energy for quarrels today.”

He hoped that his tactful politeness alone would be enough to persuade the experiment, but his expression only became firmer still at the words.

“You’re not invincible, Gaster; I know that, and you…? W-What happened to the Gaster that acknowledged he has weaknesses? C’mon, Doc… Just throw me a bone, will ya?”

Clenching both hands into fists now, Gaster found himself pushing himself away from the desk and standing. Suddenly, he felt the need to be as far away from this echo of his past as possible. Aimlessly, he left the room, though he knew that Boli would be right behind him, scuttling afterwards without question.

It wasn’t until Gaster reached the dead-end hallway of the Soul Repair Bay that he realized where he was going, and when he touched his hand to the doorknob, memories swarmed him uninvited. So many monster’s pain extracted, to leave this place lighter; ignorant. And one who he’d used that power against.

“Do you know what I did to Sans, Boli?” the scientist wondered suddenly, unsure of where the words had come from or how they had managed to fly from his mouth.

Hesitantly, Boli shook his skull from side to side.

“Good,” Gaster muttered, turning the doorknob and letting the door swing open; but his legs froze in the doorway.

What had he forced himself to forget? What had he locked away? What could be awful enough that he had laid a burden of secrecy upon Portulaca when he had never wanted to weigh her down with anything?

_ Well. She is not here to stop me anymore,  _ he growled internally, crossing the room directly to the terminal and sitting heavily, opening up the records of every memory erasure that had been carried out; from Asgore Dreemur to Comic Sans.

In retrospect, perhaps keeping a record of the ordeal with Sans was unwise, but as the saying went, “old habits die hard.”

Shaking his skull, Gaster found himself hovering the cursor over Ilea’s entry, frowning, before pushing onwards to find his own file, opening it up with a quick double click.

By then, Boli had carried a chair across the room and sat as close to Gaster as physically possible while remaining in his own seat, his pupils fixed intently on the monitor. Holding his tongue despite his curiosity, he simply waited until the other skeleton had slipped on his reading glasses to scroll uninterestedly past the date of the entry.

When he reached the second page, which normally read as a brief, objective summary of the memories removed, it merely revealed the words:  _ -Redacted.-  _ And beneath,  _ Sorry, Aster, just doing what you wanted _ .

Sighing frustratedly, the scientist clapped a palm to his forehead and rubbed it down his face, thoughtfully cradling his chin once the motion was done.

“Did s-she  _ always  _ call you Aster? That’s not your name.” Boli wondered aloud, timid.

“Until the day she died,” Gaster muttered, shaking his head. “Foolish, stubborn woman. Not unlike you, she clung to the ideal that there is still goodness left in me. Perhaps when I… perhaps she abandoned that belief at last in her final moments.”

Solemnly, Boli looked down into his hands, turning them over before tightening them into fists and straightening his posture to stare levelly at Gaster. “She was right,” he said firmly, nodding. “I don’t know w-why, but… I have this feeling that you’re capable of doing s-so much better, even if you don’t w-want to. You’ve just gotta want to.”

“If you think that, you are as foolish as she was, and stupid on top of that,” Gaster scoffed bluntly, clicking out of the useless file and turning his glare on the boy. “You know much more than she ever did about the things that I have done and you would be nothing short of idiotic-”

“I”m  _ not,  _ though - I’m  _ not  _ s-stupid!” Boli insisted, becoming frustrated. “Maybe if you could just s-see it my w-way… if you could feel how I  _ feel -  _ I could prove you wrong! Just look at yourself. You’re trying so hard to free everyone, even though it s-seems impossible. But you’ve exhausted all the easy options and this is w-what you’re left with, and you’re  _ still  _ trying!”

The oscillation of Gaster’s breathing wavering was the only sign that the words had any impact at first; then, he closed his sockets tightly, taking his glasses off and tucking them away into his breast pocket, hands trembling. Seeing the tremors but unable to read the emotions behind them, Boli shrank back.

“I cannot quit,” the scientist managed, though his voice was raw and exposed and he wanted nothing more than to lash out rather than open up. When he opened a socket to look at Boli’s face, he relaxed slightly at the sight of the boy’s enormous, concerned eyes welcoming his words. 

“I literally…  _ cannot  _ quit. It is as simple as that.” Coughing softly in attempt to clear the lump from his windpipe, Gaster straightened his posture and nodded, firmly. “I am going to finish this. The cost is insignificant. I will do whatever it takes, and…” Pausing, he shook his skull. “And you will know when it is time for me to stop. Until then, their freedom is my burden.”

Without hesitation, Boli reached up to touch Gaster’s cheekbone, his smirk growing as the scientist tipped his head into the touch, confused. “Our burden, Gaster.  _ Ours. _ ”

Overwhelmed and frightened by the gravity of emotion in the exchange, Gaster rubbed away the pale purple tears that had escaped onto his face and looked back to the monitor in front of him. Almost as swiftly as they had switched on, his emotions reverted back to a dormant state and he stared foggily away.

“S-So… You told me you didn’t w-want to…” Boli began after minutes had passed them by, clearing his throat. “You didn’t want to “pull on this thread,” right? So… Why’d you come here?” he wondered, not seeming to notice that Gaster had drifted away, his sockets dark and distant.

At first, Gaster scarcely heard the question through the dark curtain that seemed intent on its attempts to shut away reality and all the emotions that came alongside it. It was only when Boli reached over to touch his hand to Gaster’s that the scientist reacted, blinking rapidly as the light returned to his sockets.

“It is not even a dark spot nor a blank spot; it is simply  _ not there. _ I cannot tell where it begins nor where it ends. I stopped digging years ago and it was easy to all but forget I had erased anything at all. I was able to live without the desire to pull myself apart.” He spoke slowly, as if it was an effort to drag out the words.

“I know with my entire soul that I should not search for answers. Yet… it eats at me. Do you truly wish to go down this path, Boli?”

Briefly, alarm flickered across the experiment’s face, but it quickly lapsed into confusion. “But Portulaca deleted the record, didn’t she? That makes it kinda hard to find anything out, unless… w-we’re going to ask s-someone who was around back then?”

_ Asgore?...  _ Boli wondered wordlessly, trying to read Gaster’s expression.

At the question, the scientist’s thoughts turned to Toriel, ushering in a feeling of his ribs being crushed. Caught off-guard by the feelings swarming him, he shook his skull firmly.

“No, I have something much more reliable,” he spoke briskly, standing stiffly from the desk chair and starting towards the door, waiting for Boli to fall in behind him so that he could explain on the trip across the Lab.

  


“Portulaca’s calling and passion was always history; monsters, humans - it did not matter to her. They each had a story to tell, and she found fascination in all of them, dedicating her life to keeping records. She was remarkably devoted.”

Knowing that a note of admiration had found its way into his voice, Gaster avoided Boli’s undoubtedly envious gaze. “If she had only been a boss monster, then…”

Rather than finishing the thought, the scientist skipped over the rest of the sentence - that she could have accomplished so much more. That he never would have wasted her eternal life by bearing a child with her, nor by using her soul to create the clone walking beside him. The topic was sensitive enough for Boli to begin with; Gaster knew he was better off stepping as lightly as possible while he spoke of Portulaca.

“I met her before we were driven underground, when she was around Sans’ age, I suppose. Goodness, did we disagree; channelling still the hotheadedness of youth, she disrespected my work, and I scorned hers in return - though, I could not help but respect her determination.

“We remained spiteful acquaintances for a few years. Then, the war… The vast majority of our race had been turned to dust. Loss drove us closer together and we worked alongside one another for many years. When exactly she began to develop feelings for me, I am uncertain.”

As he spoke so freely of the lost skeleton, he swore he could feel her presence wreathing around him. Breathing deeply, he allowed images of her face to form in his mind; fierce and passionate, demanding honesty and commanding strength. He would be lying if he said she’d never made him feel weak.

“We lived together for some time, and as a result, I could not hide my projects from her; thus, she found out quite quickly when I began collaborating with Asgore on the memory project,” Gaster continued, shaking his head and chuckling quietly. 

“She was enraged. To her, monster’s memories were history; she saw it as me literally erasing her work. I knew that I could not afford to have her opposing my efforts every step of the way, with the clock ticking and so many monsters losing hope; so, while I experimented, I also dug for a solution to her objections.”   
Though he’d remained silent up until this point, staring away resentfully, Boli now frowned, growling, “I don’t  _ get  _ it. Everyone’s s-so threatened by you, but you talk about  _ her  _ as if… as if she never even flinched w-when…” he hesitated, sighing. “You could’ve just killed her anytime. Didn’t she know that?”

Tensing, Gaster cleared his throat. Not knowing how to respond, he decided to evade the question entirely and continued on his own topic. “Anyhow. It took a few months, but I had a breakthrough with memory-related magic and engineered the device in the Soul Repair Bay. Memories, I had realized, are simply a complex type of magic that can be extracted from a soul. And, once removed, they could be compressed and stored via magical enchantment.”

Halting suddenly as he realized he’d nearly walked past the door he’d been destined for, Gaster felt anticipation and apprehension playing between his ribs. Reaching forward, he brushed a palm across the plaque on the door, sending dust motes fluttering to the floor and revealing the words “memory storage.”

Instinctively knowing it would be unlocked, Gaster opened the door and stepped inside, glancing around. The room looked just as it had in his dream - memory? - dormant and dark, one wall lined with drawers labelled in alphabetical groups. Taking a breath to brace himself, he walked to the far end of the room and pulled open the drawer containing records W through Z. Running a finger over the disk cases with a satisfying sound of plastic clicking against bone, he held his breath.

“Wingdings Aster.” Almost disbelievingly, Gaster slid the disk case out of the stack and let it rest in his palm, his hand beginning to tremble as he opened the case to check its contents; sure enough, within sat a glimmering disk that would fit easily into his palm, buzzing slightly with magic.

“W-what now?” Boli wondered uneasily as he glanced around the eerie, dust-coated room. Sidestepping closer to the scientist, he looked up at the disk with sockets wider than usual. “It’s an enchanted object, right? S-So, it won’t just absorb like healing magic - you’ve gotta have a way to extract it and put it back into your so-”

The boy’s absent mumbling immediately cut off as Gaster turned to face him, expression unreadable. Shrinking away immediately, Boli scrutinized the other skeleton’s face, trying to determine Gaster’s intentions before he made his next move, but there was nothing to be found on his blank face. 

“...Gaster?” Boli whispered shakily after a moment, gripping his hands together.

Giving his skull a shake to dislodge his immobile thoughts, Gaster reached his hands down to Boli’s, pulling him slightly closer and pushing the disk case into his hands. Then he closed the boy’s fingers around it before bending down to brush his mouth over the boy’s knuckles, gently.

“Do with it whatever you see fit. Extract it, destroy it - whatever you wish. It is your burden now.” Certainty kept Gaster’s gaze steady as he looked into Boli’s sockets. He had no way to be sure, but he hoped that the other monster would understand the significance of the “gift.” 

Releasing the boy’s hands now, Gaster shoved his own into his labcoat’s pockets and looked away, unsure if he would be able to bear whatever emotions the boy returned.

At first, Boli only stared solemnly at the case for several seconds before finally slipping it into his own pocket and reaching up to the chest of Gaster’s shirt. Closing his fist around the fabric, he yanked downwards hard enough to nearly knock the scientist off balance, rocking onto his toes to press his teeth passionately against Gaster’s.

After a moment to regain his balance and composure, the taller skeleton tucked his hands beneath the boy’s lowest ribs, hoisting his weight easily and pinning him to the wall between two drawers. The reaction happened in an instant and before Gaster fully realized what he was doing, his torso was pressed between the boy’s spread legs.

Boli’s initial shriek of surprise faded into a giggle and he bent his head forward, contentedly purring against Gaster’s mouth as he leaned in to close the distance between them. Gaster could feel the boy’s legs tighten around his spine, welcoming him ever closer.

“Why  _ are  _ you so eager to feed yourself to a wolf, little lamb?” Gaster wondered aloud as he pulled back, his attention captured by the boy’s faintly aglow socket in the dim room.

“We’re both  _ skeletons _ , Gaster,” Boli replied, completely deadpan, before losing his facade and snorting softly. Shaking his skull, the scientist used one hand to pull the collar of Boli’s shirt downwards so he could scatter kisses along his collarbones.

“The real question is w-why you’re interested in  _ me, _ ” Boli muttered, his voice gaining an edge of bitterness as he reflected on all the fondness and admiration Gaster spoke of Portulaca with.

Immediately freezing in his lavishing pecks, Gaster leaned back to inspect the boy’s face, which was beginning to flush. “Was it not obvious? I am the wolf in this analogy,” he spoke flatly, rutting his pelvic bone against Boli and calculating the feeling of the boy’s hands tightening against the back of his ribcage. Fear? Excitement?

“And, goodness, do I ever enjoy playing with my food,” Gaster’s voice dipped deeper, becoming sensual. A satisfying thrill raced up his spine as the boy, deeply flustered by the words, turned his skull in attempt to avoid meeting Gaster’s predatory stare.

Briefly, the boy considered a slew of responses - among them, commenting that the lamb was getting impatient. In the end, though, he thought better of saying anything. Inevitably, he recalled his second day alive; Gaster staring at him from across the room, snidely grinning as he drove the boy to the edge of hysteria using nothing more than a magical impulse and malice.

He’d rather avoid giving Gaster the satisfaction of knowing he had that sort of power over him ever again. Holding a moan in his throat, Boli complacently let his teeth part so that Gaster’s tongue could explore his mouth when he felt it press its way in.

Once satisfied with the thorough taste he’d gotten, Gaster stepped away from the wall and lowered Boli to the floor, his eyes intent to see if he stumbled. Keeping his emotions reigned in, the only sign of the experiment’s frustration was his teeth grinding together, ever so quietly, as Gaster gave his head a condescending pat and turned away, heading towards the door.

Trailing after Gaster, Boli found himself fishing into his pocket to look at the case he had been given once more. The information in his hand could potentially hold power over Gaster in a way that nothing else could; but the boy’s thoughts were not considering that, but instead, the amount of trust he had just been handed.

Realizing that the scientist was waiting outside the door for him to follow, he quickly buried the memory back into his pocket and strode after him, suddenly feeling his soul’s pulse racing with something far more intense than the fear he so often felt.

How many times had he tried to say it, whether in moments of passion, or in times when it may have mattered profoundly, only to be cut off? He’d lost track. But as Boli reached Gaster’s side and held onto his hand, looking up at his handsome cracked skull, the words formed together yet again; and this time, he would not allow them to be silenced.

“Gaster, I-” just as quickly as the certainty had come on, it weakened and he waited for the other skeleton to speak over him or change the topic. “I love you!” he blurted a moment later, before he could mentally talk himself out of it. Surprised that he had managed to speak the words, Boli waited in anticipation for Gaster’s response.

Looking down the hallway, the slightest of sneers appeared on Gaster’s face. A small, breathy laugh came from him and he shook his skull, expression cold.

“No, you don’t.”


	28. Boli Blaster? / Pushes and Shoves

“Okay, Boli,  _ focus.  _ The bionic chip has been activated and you should now have full control over your magic gates; the device in your soul shall serve to channel and focus your energy for you, taking much of the strain off yourself.”

“Are you ready?” Gaster spoke from where he stood at a safe distance, clasping his hands together anxiously. “Try to direct a powerful attack at the metal plate on the wall there; it will measure your output and tell me if I need to adjust the bionic. Do not overexert yourself, however.”

Wiping away a droplet of sweat that ran down his forehead, Boli nodded and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. When his sockets reopened, magic sparked in his socket and his face hardened with passionate, murderous focus. 

An instant later, Gaster felt the air around him crackle, charged with magical energy that would make his fur stand on end if he had any. In a blink, a massive white skull, boasting massive fangs and wicked, elliptical pupils, materialized in front of Boli. It was easily the same height as the boy, but it was the length of its jaw and fangs that lent it enormity, giving it an unquestionably predatorial appearance. 

With a horrendously loud crack and the resounding boom of thunder which shook the room, the blaster’s jaw hinged open and fired a blinding, forking flash of magical electricity at the plate on the wall, singeing the paint around it black.

Breathing heavily with exertion, Boli let his arms drop and stepped back, jaw agape, as the magical skull creature pivoted to face him, briefly - though its slitted pupils focused not on the boy, but on Gaster; as if it already knew its purpose. Shuddering, the scientist shrank away.

Winking the socket that was aglow with magic, Boli reigned his energy back in; the blaster rapidly faded from existence and he turned to face Gaster. “S-so, how’d I do?” he asked with a wan grin, despite the way he panted for breath.

Trying his best to disguise the way he trembled from head to toe, Gaster slunk to the terminal to read the results. “Your blaster appears to have a damage output of… oh, goodness. Just over six hundred.”

“W-what!” Boli exclaimed, gaping.

“That is… quite something,” Gaster mused quietly, feeling his soul sink into his abdominal cavity as anxiety overtook him.

Watching Gaster’s expression drop, Boli sighed, his own excitement instantly vanishing. “But…?” he prompted.

“But… well, that was you striking a metal plate, not someone you proport to love. And even then, it is not enough,” the scientist responded, his voice bitter, edges sharp. 

“S-so? You did the DNA tuning, and I could alw-ways hit you twice, right?” Boli tried to sound as nonchalant as he could on the topic, but the tremor in his voice still showed all too plainly. “Besides, it’s not like w-we can test the damage on a living target! I’d kill s-someone!”

“Oh, because that is so terrible and unthinkable!” the scientist snapped thoughtlessly, bristling in Boli’s direction as if daring the boy to continue his protests. 

“Soft boy! Do you not recall? You were awoken for the sole purpose of taking life, and even were you not, do you think this job allows us the frivolity of mercy? No - it is the opposite! People will die at your hands until you can no longer keep track; whether because you were unable to save them, or because you sacrificed their lives for your work, there will be dust for you to bear, as well as blame! Perhaps some LV is exactly what you  _ need _ !”

Much to Gaster’s surprise, rather than shrinking away from his risen voice and fierce tone, Boli uttered out a sour laugh, glowering boldly back at him. His teeth drawing back in a growl, he snapped back, “you’re wrong! You’ve just been doing it like that so long, you’ve forgotten any other way. You’ve got nobody to blame but yourself!”

The words rattled through Gaster’s ribcage, quiet and sharp like knives. The genuine hurt that he felt caught him off guard and he knew that his expression showed it. He scrambled for words - to tell this child that he was too naive to understand, or… or…?

He couldn’t seem to find the energy to muster any more anger. Letting his skull droop, he sighed resignedly. “There has  _ been  _ no other way for me for a very long time.” His voice was heavy as he spoke; raising his attention to Boli, he found himself caught off-guard by the ferocity on his face - he had been expecting something more along the lines of pity.

“Bullshit!” Barked the experiment, mouth opening wider to display his crooked teeth in a snarl. “You stopped  _ trying!  _ Take a look at yourself, Gaster! You put s-so much effort into keeping S-Sans alive, to s-spare the lives of others recently, and why? Because the cost rose too high for you!”

Pausing for a moment to catch his breath, the boy squared up to Gaster, calming slightly. “You stopped  _ trying  _ to do the right thing a long time ago. Don’t act like there was no other way. You’re too quick to blame anyone but  _ yourself _ .”

Clenching both hands into fists, Gaster struggled to push down the guilt and anger that boiled in his soul; yet even after minutes passed, he still found himself unable to face the boy. Everything that he had so carefully constructed since his talk with Shade; all the deception, the forced smiles, stolen kisses and soul-bearing… its significance seemed to vanish in an instant.

“You are just like everyone else,” the scientist’s voice was barely audible when he finally managed to speak. “Fine. Call me a monster for what I have done; tell me how  _ disgusting _ I am. Somehow, I was beginning to think things could be different with you. I… let my guard down for you, Boli. I let myself believe that I… that you…”

The click of Boli’s feet across the floor warned Gaster of the boy’s approach and he cringed involuntarily, turning his skull away from the boy. Whatever his expression would show, the scientist was certain that in that moment he didn’t want to see it.

“I… still  _ love  _ you, Gaster. And that’s exactly why I can’t let you pretend you did everything because you  _ had  _ to. Nobody was holding you at gunpoint.” The boy’s voice was much gentler now and he touched his skeletal fingers lightly to the deep notch above Gaster’s eye, following the crack up to where it ended on the crown of his skull.

“Do you think your words mean anything?” Gaster asked stiffly, inhaling sharply against the pain in his soul. As his anger turned outwards, though, he felt the weight on his chest lift slightly. Embracing what little catharsis he could find in rage, he turned his attention to the boy at last.

Sneering maliciously, the scientist felt his shoulders shake with laughter as the other skeleton recoiled, pulling away the hand touching his skull sharply.

“Aww. Look at you, cowering away. You poor soul. So certain of your emotions, yet you are so pitifully fearful of the object of your affection,” Gaster put both hands on the desk in front of him and rose to tower over the boy as he spoke, pivoting to face him fully. “Always waiting for me to  _ snap, _ aren’t you? But you “love” me. Oh, Boli…”

Closing his sockets, Gaster laid his hand over his chest. “I am starting to want to change your mind. You know so little of the things I am capable of doing to you.” His voice was perfectly calm now as he looked down to the boy once more.

Breathing shakily, Boli only shut his eyes as if waiting for punishment to be doled out, but instead the taller skeleton strode away calmly, the lights in his sockets fading away as he walked.

“W-wait, Gaster, w-what…?” Boli called after him fearfully, involuntarily covering his own mouth when the words, against his will, burst out.

A thousand options flashed through his mind for what might come next; among them, the prospect of being beaten within an inch of his life immediately came to mind. Or, being dragged to the Soul Repair Bay and having his memory wiped clean so Gaster could start over. Or… or…

Of course, the scientist hadn’t stopped to respond. For the first time, Boli felt no urge to pursue Gaster. Yet he knew that - particularly in this moment - it was what was expected of him, and now was not the time to begin disobeying. 

His feet followed instinctively after a moment’s hesitation, hanging back at a distance even as he realized the direction Gaster was taking. Faltering outside the bedroom door when the scientist continued inside, Boli took a moment to process the fear thumping in his ribcage. It took only a few moments to feel as if his feet had literally frozen to the floor.

For a fleeting moment, he thought to turn and run; to the castle, perhaps. Would Asgore protect him, or would he return Boli to Gaster, ignorant?  Perhaps he could run to the Ruins and hide there, or in the Capital, where monsters lived in droves and he could possibly remain hidden.

He could run to Sans and pray the scientist didn’t dare to show himself there. He could even take his soul from his chest now and crush it between his hands so that he would never know fear again. So many options less daunting than stepping through the door in front of him.

But, inevitably, Boli’s mind turned to other things: the sun, a burning bundle of gas in a sky that was endless and blue; grass full of chlorophyll that soaked in the sun and sprang tall, shivering joyously in a wind pushed by the rotation of the planet.

Everything that had been taken from them wound around him in a whirlwind of images and through it all he could hear Gaster’s voice echoing within his skull, repeating, “I need to be able to rely on you.”

Fighting the weakness that urged him to sink to his knees, Boli stepped towards his fears, remembering:  _ I cannot be a coward. He needs me. _

By the time Boli finally forced himself onwards into the room where Gaster waited, he could already smell the bitter stench of whiskey in the air before he even saw the bottle in the scientist’s hand. Though facing the door, Gaster scarcely seemed to notice that the boy had entered the room, instead firing back another gulp from the bottle, his eyes fixed blankly on the entranceway over his head.

Grimly, Gaster levelled a piercing stare at the boy as he began to edge back towards the door, uncertain. Any other time, Boli might have jokingly asked what Gaster was “celebrating” this time, but he knew far better to make jokes - assuming he would even be able to form words at all.

Unsure what was expected of him, Boli only watched nervously, poised as if ready to dart back out of the room at any moment, as the scientist drank until he’d drained the last of the bottle, setting it aside on the bedside table.

Only then did the small skeleton realize there was a fully-prepared shot of Determination waiting there for use. Stumbling a pace forward, he reached a hand towards the scientist as if trying to stop him from where he stood across the room.

“No, you can’t--” Boli pleaded, but his voice went unheeded as Gaster lifted his shirt with one hand, plunging the needle between his ribs and depressing the syringe without glancing downwards, tossing it aside carelessly once drained.

Only then did he fully turn his attention to the experiment, sockets empty in the darkness. “You once asked how Determination feels. The answer lies within the question. You feel like what you have to do is clear. Your emotions stop mattering and slip away. Then, it becomes easier to do what must be done. You have a vision and nothing will stop you.”

Reaching down to the bottom compartment of his bedside table, Gaster retrieved a fresh bottle, brushing the dust settled on the neck away before cracking it open.

“Why did you decide to follow me, Boli? You could have avoided me until you thought this passed,” the skeleton wondered, sinking down onto the bed next to him slowly; his words were beginning to run together as he spoke.

“Because I lo-”

“No,” Gaster cut the boy off, his voice light though deadpan. “I think you overused that answer. Try again.”

Confusedly, Boli took another step towards the bed. “W-well… I w-wanted to know w-what you’re doing,” he began, tipping his head as Gaster laid back suddenly, setting the bottle aside. “And.... I dunno. Don’t get me wrong. I’m s-scared… but…”

Words came together slowly for Boli, and he realized only after his response was assembled how familiar it was to him. 

“Remember how you s-said, before I did the s-surgery on your hand… that you knew it’d hurt, but you w-were confident enough in me that you w-weren’t s-scared?”

Gaster rearranged himself onto his side, propping his head up with his hand so that he could gaze at Boli with thoughtful intrigue.

“It’s s-sorta like that. I know…” Boli hesitated, shifting slightly closer to the bed. “I know you w-want to hurt me. I know you w-want me to be s-scared... s-scared  _ of  _ you, but… I’m s-stronger than that fear. I’m more s-scared of what might’ve happened if I hadn’t come here.”

Shaking his head, Gaster covered his face with a hand for a few moments, trying to steady his spinning image of the world before putting a hand lightly on the mattress in front of him. “Come to bed, Boli,” he sighed, shutting his eyes and waiting for the boy to obey. A moment passed and they reopened. 

“I was not asking,” he pointed out venomously.

Forcing himself into motion, Boli walked to the edge of the bed and waited, fiddling with the hem of his labcoat. Taking a deep breath to brace himself, Gaster sat up and pushed himself to the foot of the bed where Boli stood, positioning his legs on either side of him.

Unable to look him in the eye, he opened the first button of Boli’s shirt and pulled the fabric down just enough to see into his chest cavity.

It was this action that seemed to click with Boli and he tried to step back, only to have Gaster’s hand immediately close around the fabric of his shirt, pulling him back closer. As if in attempt to persuade him, Gaster leaned forward to pepper delicate pecks across the boy’s clavicle, though they were slightly clumsier than usual.

All but choking on Gaster’s practically flammable breath, Boli’s hand drove forward into Gaster’s sternum hard, pushing him away.

“S-stop it, Gaster, you’re  _ drunk.  _ That’s not how this is going to happen; I w-want this too, but right now you-”

“I made up my mind before a drop touched my tongue,” the scientist pointed out slyly, though he let himself lean away from Boli’s shove. Meeting the experiment’s searching eyes, he sighed, looking down at the boy’s hand still held to his chest after having pushed him.

Closing his eyes and concentrating, he channeled enough magic around his soul to push it to the surface of his shirt, where it pressed against Boli’s palm, but couldn’t pass through.

“Gaster, I said  _ no, _ ” Boli hissed, pulling his hand away sharply.

Hesitating, the Royal Scientist seemed to take a moment to reevaluate. For an instant, he could see Boli’s face beginning to relax, then he reached forward to grip onto the boy’s shirt again, pulling him in a little closer.

“Again, I am not asking,” his words were flat as he began to fumble with the boy’s labcoat, dragging it down his shoulders while the boy squirmed, straining away. Without having to look, Gaster knew that by now tears of fear and betrayal alike would be dripping down his cheeks.

“Come now, Boli, where is that plucky boy who welcomed this not so long ago?” the scientist wondered as he finally managed to fight off Boli’s labcoat, letting it drop to the floor. There was no guile nor charm left in his numb voice as he spoke.

“I never saw the appeal, you know,” Gaster mused softly into the boy’s ear. “Sharing souls with someone who is fighting every step of the way… mashing oneself against a soul that has only fear and desperation to offer…”

“It takes a fouler monster than even I to desire such a thing,” he went on, using the hand that wasn’t occupied holding Boli captive by his spine to begin pulling his shirt upwards over his skull. “But you seem to need a reminder regarding who is in cont-”

“Enough!” Boli shouted suddenly, fiercely. For an instant, Gaster was stunned enough by the volume alone to loosen his grip; it was only moments later that he felt a crackle in the air he recalled all-too-clearly.

Stiffening, Gaster glanced around the room as he detected movement out of the corner of his eye. By the time he located the blaster - almost directly behind him - the creature was pulsing with energy, its elliptical green pupils trained directly on him, awaiting a command.

_ *Boli attacks!  _ A voice gasped from somewhere in the darkness. Feeling frozen on the spot, Gaster let his grip on Boli’s spine ease until he could writhe away; once freed, he stumbled back several paces, almost falling backwards in the process.

_ *Boli’s considering his options,  _ the fallen child went on, hovering nearby. Trying to ignore the presence of the hallucination, Gaster kept his eyes trained on Boli, unable to deny the pounding fear in his ribcage. Was this really how it ended?

“What were you  _ thinking!?”  _ Boli demanded, the green light in his socket flaring up brighter and crackling viciously. “Did you think I was just going to… go along with that!? You’re not  _ well,  _ Gaster! It’d be wrong for  _ both  _ of us and we’d both just regret it!”

Stunned, Gaster found that he could only stare dumbfoundedly at Boli.  _ What is he waiting for?  _ He wondered, glancing at Chara’s image out of the corner of his eye. Seeing his expression, Boli hissed through his teeth loudly and turned away, bringing up a hand which he clasped into a fist, the blaster behind the scientist vanishing along with the gesture.

“What? Is that how you think it’s  _ supposed  _ to be? Slam back as much booze as you can hold - shoot up Determination before you share your soul? And why?  Because I’ve hurt your  _ feelings _ ?” the experiment growled, his fists tightening at his sides. “Is that what you have to do to…  _ s-stomach  _ me?” 

With these words, Boli, desolated, turned away.

Almost instantly, Gaster felt his emotions escape his grasp, running free, loosened by intoxication. Moments later, tears were pooling up unwanted in his sockets and he choked them back, the purple tint in his cheeks redoubling as he held his breath for a moment.

“No… Boli, I… It’s me, alright?” he blurted, pressing both hands into his sockets as if physically trying to plug his leak of tears. “My soul, my past, my parts, me. I cannot… I couldn’t do this any other way. I’m sorry… I--” 

Everything seemed to spring up all at once: shame, rage, regret… He heard a single footstep towards him and, not lowering his hands to even peek at Boli, shrank away.

“Gods, this is pathetic,” Gaster muttered, stifling bitter laughter. “Have I changed your mind, yet?”

Chuckling weakly, Boli stepped forward another pace and rested a hand on Gaster’s femur. Even if he’d tried, he knew he couldn’t stay angry with the scientist. “Nah, I think you failed this time. Ya bonehead,” he joked, leaning a little closer in attempt to peer at his face.

Lowering his hands, Gaster looked to Boli with an expression of undisguised mortification. Instinctively, the boy pulled back his hand, instead touching it to his own sternum, seeming startled by the reaction he’d received.

“Sometimes, you just remind me so much of them,” Gaster mumbled, shaking his head and setting the room spinning yet again.

“S-so?... I’m a s-soul that has already loved you. Magic that tried to s-stop you. Doesn’t that make me perfectly s-suited to my purpose?”

Bringing his hands back up to his sockets to re-cover them, Gaster shook his skull once more. “You can’t… can’t “love” me until the day you have to kill me. You won’t. You’re too “good.” Too good to love someone like me. You should see that by now. After what I was about to do… As  _ punishment,  _ no less. I-!”

Gaster found his words cut off as he felt Boli’s hands close around both his wrists, pulling his hands down from his face before leaning his face closer, aim destined for a kiss.

Reeling away, the scientist shook his head. “Please leave,” he slurred, pushing a hand aimlessly in Boli’s direction as he laid back on the bed, grabbing a pillow and placing it over his face. He couldn’t measure his actions - anything he did now, he knew he would only regret in the morning.

Hesitantly, Boli took a step backwards, keeping his eyes on Gaster’s unmoving figure. Then, driven by an instinct he couldn’t identify, he lightly stepped to the bedside table, putting the cap back on Gaster’s bottle and picking up the empty syringe. 

Then, he walked back to the foot of his bed and picked up his labcoat, pulling it back on and hugging it around himself. He glanced again to Gaster, who hadn’t yet moved.

“So, uhh… w-what should I do?” the experiment asked timidly after a moment, shrinking back slightly as Gaster’s first response was an agitated groan, then he rolled over to push his face into the mattress.

“Just leave me be. I don’t care  _ what  _ you do.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Boli backed to the door and stepped out into the hallway, his leg bones rattling audibly the moment he thought he was out of Gaster’s hearing range. Once he’d made it as many paces away from the bedroom as his legs were willing to carry him, Boli leaned against the nearest wall, suddenly gasping for breath.

_ I can’t believe I…  _ the thought fell away to images of the blaster hovering threateningly, the tears welling in Gaster’s sockets, the vulnerability and horror in his voice. How, even after he’d released Boli and backed down, the scientist had seemed to genuinely believe that the boy was going to kill him then and there.

The few traces of anger left in Boli ebbed away and guilt set in, his knees weakening and giving out until he was sitting on the floor, struggling to breathe.

_ Oh god. Oh  _ god.  _ What did I just do? Why didn’t I just listen?  _

“Idiot!” Boli burst out, clapping his palm against his face hard enough that it stung for a long moment afterwards.  _ I have to go apologize… I have to take it back… Have to… have to… no! He wanted me to go away! _

Feeling torn in two by the circling thoughts, the experiment clutched at the sleeves of his labcoat, his fingers digging into his arms hard; beyond his control, his breathing began to accelerate until his vision began to spin; a crawling sensation crept across his bones. With what little control he could muster, he stood up, ready to flee the thoughts and crawl back into bed with Gaster and face whatever might come.

A sound of plastic clattering onto the tile and skittering away stopped Boli and he turned around, kneeling to pick up the disk case that had fallen out of his pocket, holding it gingerly with both hands.  _ His memories…  _ he thought, caressing a hand over the front of the case.

A moment later, Boli’s expression hardened and he clutched the plastic case tightly against his sternum, marching off to the Soul Repair Bay before his certainty could lapse.


	29. The Cost of Love

Pushing the door firmly shut behind him, Boli locked himself into the distant corner of the Lab’s Soul Repair Bay. Sitting down at the terminal, he pulled a neatly-folded sheet of paper from his labcoat’s pocket; once he’d carefully unfolded it, he typed one of the many passcodes Gaster had written down for him into the locked down terminal before squinting at the screen as it unlocked.

“Memory extraction…” he mumbled under his breath, clicking the program. After several moments to take in the interface, feeling rather overwhelmed, he at last, uncertainly, clicked a “playback” link, jumping as the terminal emitted a beep of protest, a message of “Please insert disk!” popping up.

“W-Where?” he mumbled aloud to the computer as if it would actually respond. “C’mon, I just w-wanna do this before I chicken out.” With these words, he stood up and walked over to the examination table, craning his neck to look up at the strange overhanging device. Hesitantly, he climbed onto the table to get a closer look.

Suddenly, something felt very familiar. A scent he couldn’t quite place, simultaneously tangy and earthy, wrapped around him; instinct fell upon him unbidden and he reached towards a part of the mechanism, giving it a slight push down. Immediately, a lid hissed open on pressurized hinges, revealing an opening to perfectly contain a memory disk.

Glancing around, Boli blinked a few times as orange smoke seemed to hover between him and the disk slot for a moment; it disappeared as swiftly as it had appeared, though, taking the inexplicable smell with it.

Frowning and shaking off the strange feeling, the boy quickly inserted the disk and pushed the lid shut once more;  before he could rise from where he sat to return to the terminal, vaguely shimmering magic filled the air around him, gradually forming into the shapes of stone pillars missing texture and detail; nothing seemed to come into focus except for the shape of two monsters.

Soul thumping, Boli stared intently at the pair. One was unmistakably Gaster - though he seemed somehow much smaller despite possessing the same height. He stood in an embrace with a slightly shorter white-furred monster, stroking a skeletal hand slowly up and down their back. When he leaned back to look the other monster in the eyes, Boli’s soul skipped a beat - not only due to the youthfulness of the scientist in this memory, but the warmth and love present in his expression.

“You are going to do _great_ , Gaster. I am certain. And even if you do not succeed... I will always love you,” the goat monster spoke in a soft, gentle voice. Straightening up, Boli’s attention trained hard on the strange monster, glowering. Who…?

“Tori…” when Gaster spoke it sounded almost as if it would be the last time he ever said the name. In response to his shaking voice she gently laid a paw on his cheekbone, lifting her head high enough to graze her mouth across Gaster’s.

Mortified, yet unable to look away, Boli shuddered and shook his skull from side to side. Finally, after far too many muted words and strokes of the face, the scene began to change shape, the monster called Tori melting away into the floor. 

Vague stone surroundings passed the examination table by now, blurry stained glass windows bleeding color onto the floor, saturating it with jumbled hues. Unable to focus on the unclear surroundings, Boli instead kept his eyes trained on the figure of Gaster walking through the halls.

Suddenly, everything seemed to jerk into focus as if a lense had been adjusted; suddenly, Gaster knelt on one knee before a set of stairs, a red carpet rolled down the stone steps, ending where the skeleton bowed.

When his eyes moved past the scientist, Boli found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of the throne at the top of the steps. Etched into memory with such painstaking detail, it seemed the brightest thing in the room. When Gaster raised his head, however, a dark silhouette blotted out the throne, standing before it with massive height only embellished by the raised area they stood upon.

“King Dreemurr…” Gaster spoke in a voice both resounding and submissive from where he stooped.

“Wingdings. What brings you into my castle,  _ skeleton? _ ”

Stiffening involuntarily at the cool, hard sound of the voice, Boli cast his gaze up at the stairs, squinting at the figure before the throne. He seemed oddly shrouded in darkness, but his figure, massive and bulky, was unmistakably familiar.

“Asgore…?” the boy wondered aloud, sitting up on the examination table and turning towards him; yet, even as he scrutinized closer, the image grew no clearer.

_ Duh. This is a memory - all I’m seeing is what Gaster remembers,  _ Boli realized, shaking his head at himself and waiting for the events to progress in silence.

Gaster stood at the question, posture proper and skull held high with the dignity of a nobleman, though his youth and the way he trembled in fear detracted from his image. “I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.” Despite his shaking, his words were pronounced confidently.

Tense silence overtook Boli’s unfamiliar surroundings; the quiet stretched longer still until, at last, Gaster spoke once more. “I love her very much, and she returns that love. Our union could unite our clans - as you know, I inherited-”

All it took from the king at the throne was a slightly louder breath for Gaster’s words to trip to a halt; fear ate away at the surety on the skeleton’s face and he began to rattle, ever so quietly.

“ _ You  _ are not a Dreemurr, Wingdings. Why would I ever allow a  _ skeleton  _ to marry into my position?...” the menacing calm of King Dreemur’s voice sent a shudder down Boli’s spine. Yet, he also processed the scorn in the monster’s voice and cringed.  _ Nobody  _ got away with speaking to the Royal Scientist that way, yet…

“I suppose you must know that it will soon be time for me to retire. Did you come here thinking you could take advantage of Toriel’s naivety in order to obtain power?”

Sockets widening, Gaster shrank back in fear; unable to help feeling it as if it were his own, Boli squirmed through the long silence that passed before the young scientist finally, softly, spoke.

“I love her with all my soul, my king.” His voice was swollen with emotion at first, but quickly hardened, professional once more. “I do not want  your crown nor your throne. I could not bear to see the woman I love - and who loves me - married to someone she does not. My intentions-”

“Enough, Wingdings,” the king snapped coldly. “Leave, before I am forced to remove you.”

Dropping to one knee suddenly, Gaster clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “I implore you. Anything that you wish of me - anything I could to do persuade you - I will do it!”

A flicker of intrigue lit up the king’s eyes for a split second before it was disguised; then, he started down the stairs towards Gaster. When he reached the kneeling skeleton, his features suddenly seemed to focus.

Crimson eyes and spiral horns sprouting proudly from his crown were the first things Boli noticed which set him apart from Asgore; though, given that they were the same species of monster, he supposed they must look rather different.

“Stand,” the king commanded; Gaster rose swiftly, lifting his chin higher. The horned monster circled him once in full, his muzzle scowling sternly, though his eyes seemed to reflect something else entirely.

A gaping feeling opened up in Boli’s abdominal cavity; the expression was all-too-familiar. How many times had he seen that very same dull glimmer in Gaster’s sockets?  Nothing more than measured malicious intent, stirring just beneath the surface.

“How old are you, Wingdings?” the king wondered once he’d made two full circuits around the smaller monster, his paw resting thoughtfully on his chin.

“Seventeen,” the skeleton replied back, wary.

“And your parents have already passed?”

“Yes, my king.”

“Yet you seem very mature for your age. Clever, as well.”

Boli could practically feel the way Gaster’s soul must be thumping frantically in his chest cavity. Fear and anticipation alike pulsed through the boy and he leaned forward in his seat, waiting.

Turning away abruptly, King Dreemurr scoffed softly. “Oh, forget it,” he muttered, deliberately quiet. Seeing the interest dangled before him, the young scientist dove into the manipulation without a second thought.

“There must have been a purpose behind your questions.”

For a moment, the king didn’t respond; then, he turned to Gaster, perfectly expressionless. “Your clan has offered to me countless brilliant scholars to work beneath me for generations, but never a Boss Monster. I cannot help  but imagine what we - what  _ you  _ \- could accomplish for all monsterkind in your infinite time.”

The skeleton frowned ever-so-slightly, seeming puzzled by where the topic had settled. Grazing past the carefully aimed praise, Gaster tipped his skull, almost condescendingly. “You receive me with such belittling disgust, yet expect me to leap at the opportunity to hand over my intellect for naught in return?”

The cautious respect he’d injected into his voice previously now vanished and he raised his sockets boldly to the king’s eyes; even in memory, the air seemed to grow tenser still at the brave words. Chuckling deeply, the king shook his head.

“You are no fool, Wingdings. You were raised according to your high status and I have no doubts that you have a firm grasp of politics,” the king spoke as he wandered back up the stairs towards his throne. “Nor am I a fool. I would not expect you to take such a one-sided offer, even for your king.”

Lifting his chin and glowering up the stairs at King Dreemurr’s back, Gaster growled, “get to the point.” At this, the other monster turned around, one eyebrow arched in response to the snapped words.

“Do you not see that you are taking Toriel being married off far too seriously due to your own upbringing? A royal family’s marriage is not for  _ love,  _ it is for public appearances and for producing an heir -  you of all monsters should be well aware of that.”

Frowning, Gaster awaited the king’s next words.

“Do you believe your father remained loyal to that  _ wretch _ of a woman for the duration of their forced union?”

Sockets widening, Boli couldn’t help drawing in a gasp at the words; however, Gaster, ever in control, remained stoic and silent.

“Or did he have a mistress, or three?” King Dreemurr continued, his piercing eyes passing over the composed skeleton standing below him. A faint smile overtook the monster’s face and he gave his head a firm nod, as if coming to a decision.

“If Toriel truly loves  _ you,  _ Wingdings, I would be willing to look the other way if you wished to move into the castle to facilitate your sneaking around. There are conditions to my offer, of course-”

Enraptured by his victory, Gaster leapt up the half-dozen steps between himself and the king, taking a knee before him and bowing his skull low. “Anything, my king.”

“You are not to share souls,” the king snapped immediately, scowling. After watching the skeleton’s hasty nodding of agreement for a moment, he sighed heavily. “You must tell no-one of this. This will depend on secrecy, as it is, after all, politics.”

“And, lastly… I am allowing this only if you heed my wishes.” The towering monster paused for a moment as if considering his next words, leaning over Gaster slightly. “Lest, the noose may find you for your debauchery. Defiling the crown princess is a  _ very  _ serious crime, wouldn’t you say?”

Instinctively, Gaster brought a hand to his windpipe, sockets widening. Scarcely able to breathe at this point, Boli found himself stumbling up from the table, reaching a hand towards the projected figure of the scientist.

“No!” he shouted tearfully. “He’s a bad monster, Gaster, you can’t-” the boy shouted to the ghosts of the past, his words bouncing off the walls, unheard. Tearing up, the boy clamped his hands into his fists and pushed them against his sternum until it ached.

“You will become a Royal Scientist. Your every task will be hand-picked by myself. If your usefulness expires, you will be dismissed and forbidden your permission to see Toriel. This agreement shall stand for the remainder of my years; think carefully before you respond, Wingdings. I will make no other offer.”

“Please s-say no, please tell me you s-said no, please, please-” the begging froze in Boli’s windpipe as he fixated on Gaster’s expression.

Sockets unfocused and faraway, pupils shifting rapidly; horrified, determined. Realizing for the first time that love came with a cost.

Unable to watch any longer, Boli swung around and leapt onto the examination table on all fours, slamming a hand into the disk entry and opening it, cutting off the playback.

“Well, Gaster?” the experiment snarled over his shoulder at the fading and melting illusions of the past. “Was it worth it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~this is why Boli will probably always forgive him~~


	30. The Duality of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... With this update comes some unfortunate news. Skipping specifics, I'm currently at a point in my life where I can't continue to write this fic and upload chapters on a regular basis. Sorry to whoever this disappoints, but for the past month or two I've only been dreading Friday rolling around. My time management skills are mostly to blame. There will still be updates, (most likely) but I can't promise when or how often.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways, that's that. See you guys next update, whenever that might be.

Awakening in the dark of the Lab’s night cycle, Boli instinctively reached a hand over to Gaster’s side of the bed to see if his warmth had faded entirely from the mattress. Instead, his fingers collided awkwardly with Gaster’s bare ribs; yet, the other skeleton didn’t startle awake at the touch.

Pulling his hand back with a frown, Boli sat up to look around the dark bedroom. The scientist hadn’t stirred, either, when the boy had crawled into bed last night after another hour of pacing about the Lab, trying to forget what he’d learned from the memory disk. It had been to no avail, his sleep patchy, plagued by dark recollection of his creator’s discarded past.

Blinking drowsily, he at last reached over to the alarm clock, turning it towards himself enough to check the time. In about a half hour, the lights would switch on and Gaster would awaken, and it would be time to… 

_ To what?  _ Boli wondered, glancing over at the scientist’s sleeping figure.

Shaking his skull and dismissing the question, he slid out of the covers and crept to the dresser, pulling on clean clothes in the dark before opening the door just wide enough to sneak from the room.

Rubbing the heels of his hands into his tired sockets, Boli made his way to the kitchen, clambering onto the counter to retrieve two mugs from the cabinet and carefully slipping back down. Once his feet were on the floor again, he prepared the drip stand with grounds - Gaster had begun leaving the tin of coffee down for him.

With both cups brewed, Boli upturned the sugar shaker over his mug, stirring while the stream of white granules dissolved into the steaming black liquid. Once he figured it was enough, he sipped at it tentatively, giving his skull a nod of approval, reaching over to the second mug on the counter to bring it back to Gaster, he half-turned to the doorway.

“Boli…?” A deep, drowsy mumble came from the entrance, causing the boy to leap up in fright, his hands flying to his sternum as he released the mug in his hands and let it clatter to the floor.

Upon hitting the tile, the chipped blue ceramic shattered at its weak point, spraying hot coffee and shards of itself over Boli’s feet. Yelping in pain, he skittered away from the impact, scarcely managing to keep his footing on the now-slick floor.

Frozen in the door, Gaster found himself unable to look away from the blue fragments scattered across the floor. After a long moment, he took a single, stumbling step forward. There was no mistaking it; there was only one blue mug in the Lab.

“I’m s-so s-s-sorry, Gaster, I’ll s-sweep it up right aw-w…” Boli began, on the verge of tears, only to be cut off as Gaster pounced forward, clasping his hand around the boy’s clavicle and hurling him away from the mess, downwards at the floor. Though he scrambled to keep his balance, Boli toppled to the floor, hands skidding across the tile.

Kneeling, Gaster picked up the three largest shards and fit them together, piecing back together the text - “espresso your feelings.” For a moment, he only held them together; then, he stood up shakily and placed the broken pieces onto the counter, his hands trembling.

It was minutes before Gaster became aware of Boli’s shaking breaths, trying to stifle sobs. Slowly, he turned to the boy, watching him quake with both hands pressed tightly against his chest. At first, disgust was all that the scientist could feel - how could the little tumble have hurt him so badly?

Looking more closely, though, he realized that the fabric around the boy’s hand had a creeping green stain around it, and viscous circulatory magic was dripping along his ulna and radius. 

His breath now caught in his windpipe and Gaster hurried to kneel before Boli, reaching forward to inspect his hand. He found himself having to pry the boy’s hand away from his chest so that he could look - and even then, the boy’s fist stayed clenched. Gripping hard onto Boli’s wrist, Gaster forced his fingers open, his own digits soon slippery from the boy’s lifeblood.

Due to the boy’s hand having shut so tightly, Gaster could scarcely see the piece of ceramic buried deep in the soft centre of his palm. Letting Boli's arm go and looking at his own stained hands, Gaster put a hand on his knee to stand.

“I will go retrieve tweezers to-” he began, but trailed off as Boli reached his uninjured hand to his palm, carefully pinching his smaller, defter fingers around the piece of ceramic and pulling it out. Fresh green blood bubbled up, welling down his wrist, showing no sign of clotting.

“Here, I can-” Gaster began, reaching towards the boy’s wounded hand.

“Forget it!” Boli snarled, confrontational in an instant. “If that s-stupid mug really means s-so much to you, just forget it!”

“No, Boli, I-” The scientist tried again, only to be cut off with a  _ hurk!  _ of breath driven out of him when the boy shoved his injured hand forward, hard, into Gaster’s sternum, sending him tumbling backwards from his kneeling position and leaving a green handprint on his sweater.

“Go away!” Boli shouted, squeezing his sockets shut to blind himself against Gaster’s hands reaching forward yet again. “Just go away! I’m sick of this! I hate you!”

Withdrawing his hands, Gaster’s expression hardened. “Good,” he growled, pushing his palm into the floor and rising to his feet. “I am glad you have come to your senses.” Reaching down, the towering skeleton pulled the clone to his feet, grasped carelessly like the handle of an inanimate object.

“Clean up your mess. I am going down to the Underlab. You may join me when you are done being-”

“Being  _ what!? _ ” Boli interrupted, hissing almost animalistically as Gaster turned back towards him, mouth agape in shock. “Hurt? ‘Cuz you threw me to the floor over a  _ cup _ ? Mad, ‘cuz you treat me like, like… like all my feelings are somehow smaller than yours!? Maybe you’re the one who should take a look at his reactions!”

The experiment watched his speechless creator’s face for a moment before sucking in a deep breath, managing to calm himself slightly. “Either stop treating me like a piece in your game, or commit to it. If I can’t love you ‘til the day I kill you, you can’t click teeth with a pawn in your game. Make up your mind. What do you want from me?”

Caught off guard and finding himself unable to answer, Gaster let his skull droop, focus lowering to the floor. 

_ *You wonder how you can twist this outburst to your advantage,  _ Chara muttered, glaring at Boli from across the room.

“I feel terrible,” Gaster corrected them aloud, not looking up.

_ *Stop wasting time. _

“I need a moment,” he snapped, not as quietly as he would’ve liked.

Glancing around, the small skeleton’s face puckered with anger yet again. “Who are you  _ talking _ to?” he growled.

“Myself!” Gaster responded swiftly, crossing his arms in front of his chest and scowling at Boli. “Stop standing around and bleeding on my floor and go dress your hand, boy. We have work to do, and you are using up valuable time.”

Defiance weakening at the direct order, Boli shrank down and slunk from the kitchen. Leaving the boy to lick his wounds in a rather literal sense, Gaster set about the task of sweeping up a few stray shards of ceramic, streaking coffee across the floor. Then, summoning up a magical hand so he could multitask, he wiped up the spill on the tile while remaking the dropped coffee with a fresh mug. 

Picking up the mug that had managed to avoid catastrophe, he tipped a small sip into his mouth, testing it for sweetness before swallowing back half the contents, hoping it would chase away the combined migraine of a hangover and Determination - or at least, take the edge off.

When Boli re-entered the kitchen, poking at the dressing on his hand, both skeletons froze in surprise, looking at one-another; Gaster had expected the boy to head on to the Underlab, and the boy hadn’t expected him to wait. Nor clean up, nor go out of his way to brew a fresh coffee for him.

“I am sorry, Boli.” The scientist burst out first, his voice anxious as he reached back to hold the newly-made coffee out to the boy. He watched carefully as Boli took a sip, face puckering. “Do you need more sugar?”

“No, it’s just hot,” Boli muttered, avoiding the other skeleton’s sockets for a moment, as stoic as possible, before his expression suddenly crumpled and he set the mug aside on the counter, springing forward to close the distance between himself and the scientist to hug him tightly.

“I’m really s-sorry, too. I just got s-so mad, I didn’t mean…” he began in a rush, trailing off as Gaster began to gently rub his fingertips along the boy’s spine, shushing him gently.

They remained in the embrace for several minutes until, at last, Boli found words to continue. “I know that w-was S-Sans’ mug… right?” he ventured, pushing away from Gaster to look at him in the sockets, swallowing hard when the scientist only nodded, tensing. “S-so that w-was probably the last thing you had of his.  I’m s-so… s-sorry. I know. I know.” With this, he moved back forward to wrap his arms around Gaster’s ribcage again.

“I know you really did care for them. But, please… they’re gone. I… can’t keep going like this with you taking it out on me. I-”

Drawing away defensively, Gaster dared to meet the clone’s gaze, almost fearfully. “...Cared for them? Boli, I… took Portulaca’s life. Sans - I nearly murdered him, too. I violated him. I do not think you understand-”

“You’d do the s-same thing to me,” Boli interrupted, his sockets round and serious as he surveyed the taller skeleton’s face. “But… that doesn’t mean you didn’t care about them both. Maybe even… loved them?”

Shocked into silence yet again, a feat that was difficult to achieve when it came to him, Gaster found himself unable to do anything but look away. What could he say? ‘Perhaps, but it didn’t matter? Perhaps I loved them, but not enough to stop my LV?’ Something bitter, ironic, hopeless. It was better not to waste his breath.

“I hate you. But I love you. I really do. Do you understand? Do you… feel the s-same w-way?” the boy prompted after a long silence, searching Gaster’s face for any sign his emotions hadn’t shut down completely. “W-was it like that w-with them?”

Words catching in his windpipe, Gaster began to shake his skull helplessly. Clearing his throat hard, he forced words around the lump forming there. “No… No, I never  _ hated  _ either of them. I played games, gave way to darkness, but never once did I hold hatred in my soul for either of them. Here and now, I… I know that they did not deserve what I did to them. Yet, given everything, I do not think I would make any different choices if I could start over.”

“And I most certainly do not hate you,” he added after a pause, reaching down to cup his hand under Boli’s chin.

Though he’d half-expected to be swiped away, Boli’s only reaction was to tip his head back slightly to stare soulfully up at the scientist. He felt only inches away from the words he so desperately craved to hear, but would not nudge Gaster again.

With no words left to say, Gaster bent to touch his teeth to the boy’s, clasping his hands lightly on either side of his cheekbones. Though unsure if the moment was right, he ventured his tongue carefully between the boy’s teeth, shuddering involuntarily as he felt the boy’s tongue push back, slickly wet and forceful. He would have preferred to quash it, but a small moan of relief and satisfaction escaped Gaster at the experiment’s responsiveness.

Hearing the sound, the boy tipped his skull slightly, parting his jaw wider. The instant he was given better access, Gaster sank his tongue in deeper, his breathing heavier as he was drawn further and further into the kiss.

When Boli pulled back to catch his breath, wiping his mouth, Gaster immediately stood straight, turning away. Before he could take a step, though, he felt small hands grasping at him; one closed around his wrist and the other found his spine through his ruffled sweater. 

“W-where ya going?” Boli wondered in a breathy voice, stepping backwards and guiding Gaster along until his back was against the kitchen counter, where he let go of the other skeleton long enough to hoist himself onto the counter.

“Boli…?” Gaster’s voice was tense and questioning when he spoke the boy’s name, cringing as hands slipped into his sweater, resting on the upper ridge of his hipbones. 

“Should I s-stop?” the experiment wondered, keeping one eye on Gaster’s expression as he curved an arm upwards into the scientist’s ribcage, feeling  around until he made contact with his soul.

Closing his sockets, Gaster almost involuntarily slumped, resting his forehead against the boy’s shoulder. Hearing his own breaths, disrupted and shaky, he cringed; how did this uncertain grip and inexperienced fondling manage to bring so much heat onto his face? 

“Is that okay?” Boli ventured after a moment, tipping his head so that his skull touched Gaster’s lightly.

Hesitantly, the scientist stood up straight once more, lightly laying a hand on Boli’s sternum. “May I?”

Flushing at the words, Boli averted his gaze, hoping that the instinctive fear didn’t show. Managing a nod, he closed his sockets. With a quick flourish, Gaster pulled the boy’s soul from his chest cavity and into his hand, caressing his palm across it - lightly at first, then more firmly, testing the limits of the boy’s sensitivity.

Feeling the boy’s hands attempting to imitate the motion beneath his shirt, Gaster felt a smirk come across his face. The comparatively tiny hand couldn’t recreate the stimulation, but it seemed a valiant attempt.

Resettling his forehead on the boy’s clavicle, he fought a shiver that shook him skull-to-toe. Butterflies and nausea battled in his abdominal cavity, and he fought against both alike.  _ Why shouldn’t I enjoy this?  _ He wondered silently.

_ *You know why. _

Almost jumping at the voice, Gaster did his best to ignore them and reached his spare hand to the Boli's other, which still sat on the ridge of his ilium, guiding it up to his soul to join the other.

“Am I… doing okay?” Boli wondered after only a moment seemed to pass, voice nervous. Privately, he was rapidly beginning to regret taking charge on a topic he knew so little about; for all his desire and Gaster’s aggravation of it, he had yet to even explore his own soul.

“Yes, you are doing fine,” the taller skeleton soothed, though his voice wound up coming out rather flat.

“You’re just… quiet. Should I s-stop?”

_ Quiet…? _ The scientist echoed mentally. What did the boy expect? Some moaning, whining his name, making a fool of himself to validate him and his clueless attempts to please him?  _ Yes, I suppose that is exactly what he’s seeking, _ he realized, now leaning back to inspect Boli’s face.

_ He wants…? What is this, an apology? Or does he think release will somehow improve my temperament? I wonder.  _ Giving up on finding an answer in Boli’s watchful stare, he shook his skull. No point in letting this drag on any longer. Stepping away, he used one skeletal hand to lift the torso of his shirt enough that the boy’s hands wouldn’t get caught on the fabric.

“Uhm…? Gaster?” Boli questioned, clasping his hands together anxiously before gently rubbing them together, as if feeling the thin layer of soul aura that had accumulated.

“We do not have time for that right now, as much as I would like for you to continue.” Though he spoke firmly, he was nearly thrown off-balance by a shudder that passed through him, starving for touch.

“Aww, c’mon, G’,” the boy crooned, extending a leg to gently graze his toes across the crotch of the scientist’s pants. “How long could it take?”

Finding himself instantly defensive against the flirtatious teasing, Gaster scoffed. “With your inexperienced fumbling? Hours,” he jibed, merciless as he zeroed in on the experiment’s insecurity on the matter.

Watching the boy’s face pucker with anger, Gaster smiled snidely, finding refuge in the catharsis of knocking his creation down a few notches. “Oh, and your shirt is on backwards,” he added nonchalantly, giving his shoulders a small, smug shrug. “Try to correct that before you join me in the Underlab, hm? I cannot have the subjects thinking I have an assistant who is unable to even dress himself.”

“Frickin’ hate you,” Boli muttered in a low tone, pulling out the collar of his shirt to look at the tag before pulling it over his skull and righting it; pausing with his soul exposed, he leered knowingly across the room.

Involuntarily, Gaster flinched. He couldn’t count the times he’d seen the experiment’s soul exposed, emotions clearer than his ribcage, but something felt not quite right. No less than a week ago, he’d sensed the boy’s emotions shining purely, selfless and kind, even in its base desires.

Yet now Gaster could sense his emotions all the same, but they were scarcely recognizable compared to what he had seen once - hard and tinted with anger and lust, tied up in a green bow of envy. 

Seeing Gaster shrink away and smiling, self-satisfied, Boli pulled his shirt back on the right way. Then he pushed himself off the kitchen counter, sauntering to the door with a room-consuming confidence that was almost like looking in a mirror. When he turned back to face Gaster, his eyes were narrowed and sharp, searching him in a way that he was unused to.

Fighting the sensation of his soul doing somersaults in his chest cavity, Gaster carefully donned a mask of neutrality, tucking his hands behind his tailbone and straightening up. “Go on ahead, Boli, and prepare the dose for S-3. I should throw together breakfast for us. Do not proceed into the prisoner’s ward without me; Ilea and Shade have had free run of the quarters and they may be dangerous. Understood?”

The clone’s act weakened and dropped, and he tipped his head to the side, curious, but he held his tongue against the question: Why not call them Subject Four and Five? Gaster spoke only in passing of the monsters - he seemed to avoid the topic - but it was always with their names. What kept him from dehumanizing them, too? 

“Yessir,” Boli affirmed before Gaster could become impatient, dipping his head in a submissive, small bow before backing from the room.

“Boli, your-!” the scientist began, but the boy had already vanished and didn’t return. “...coffee,” he finished to the empty room, heaving a long sigh. 

Trying to shake off the events of the morning in their entirety, he plugged in the magic-fueled hotplate he’d unearthed to prepare meals for the subjects when they had been interred, putting on a pot of porridge that would feed all of them. 

Once it was over the heat, Gaster closed his eyes wearily against the kitchen light, digging his fingertips into his aching skull. In the darkness behind his sockets, he image of Boli’s eyes, sharp as they scrutinized him - the newfound darkness his soul wielded. The recollection was almost burnt in.

_ As much as I hated to see Portulaca and Sans in him…  _ shoving his fingers firmly into the cracks running across his skull, Gaster’s shoulders shook with bitter, pained laughter.  _ This is far worse. To see myself reflected there. Far, far worse. But it is too late. _

_ I never intended for him to turn into this. I never… never intended to care. Too late now. It is always too late. _

_ _


	31. Who Needs Titles with Legs Like These?

 

Boli clasped both hands to his chest, fighting to remain calm in the tight space of the elevator; yet he couldn’t help thinking of the hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt and stone pressing down on the Underlab, and that it was only a matter of time before structures both man- and monster-made succumbed to the forces of gravity, so were the odds really so slim that he needed not fear being buried alive, despite-

Had the ventilation system malfunctioned, or…? Tumbling from the lift with a gasp the moment the door opened enough to let him through, Boli leaned against the control panel for the Underlab’s systems, scanning the screen. Everything was online - of course. A glimmer of triumph came over him, washing away his residual anxiety and he turned back towards the elevator, placing his hands on his hips.

Shaking his skull, Boli turned back to the control panel, glancing over the security monitors with intended brevity, but upon locating the subjects, his attention was captured. They sat side-by-side outside the door that Angel was hosted behind, exchanging muted conversation, relatively carefree.

Slowly, Boli reached up to the monitor to wipe his thumb over the dark, distorted smudge on the screen. “You must be Shade,” he mumbled, fascination pulling him in until he lost track of the time he’d spent staring at the strange creature.

Snapping back to reality at the sound of the elevator’s door sliding shut as it was called back up, Boli gave his head a firm shake. “Agh, the injection!” he exclaimed aloud to himself, scoldingly, taking off down stone-lined hallways towards his given task.

Sure not to rush the job despite how much time he’d wasted, Boli found Angel’s prepared vials and loaded one into a syringe, giving the tube a couple flicks before capping the point.

“Ah, so you managed to complete your task,” Gaster observed from the doorway, causing Boli to fumble and nearly drop the syringe. The scientist never did seem to make a sound when he walked, the boy realized in that moment.

“I had half-expected you to disobey me and get yourself dusted by Shade,” the tall skeleton added, not sounding amused in the last. 

“They’re both by Angel’s door,” Boli mumbled, barely daring to turn back to face Gaster. Meeting his gaze, cold as the day he’d awoken, the boy pushed down an ache in his soul.  _ It’s always one step forward and two steps back with him, isn’t it?... _ he thought, tears threatening to well up in his eyes.

“I had noticed. What do you think, Boli? Shall we share a meal with our experiments, as if we are friends, though we may kill them?”

_ Is this a test?  _ Boli wondered, fearfully searching Gaster’s expression for any trace of emotion. Stuttering an incoherent syllable, the boy shrugged helplessly, trying to form an answer before the scientist grew impatient.

“No… Because they’re  _ not  _ our friends… They’re just s-s-s… subjects. Right?” Even once he managed to spit the words out, Gaster only tipped his skull, as if inviting him to elaborate. 

“They’re… they might all die. And you w-want to make sure I don’t get attached, either. Right?” Boli went on, though aware he was venturing out onto thin ice in the dark.

“Asgore seemed to make quite the impression on you. I do not want you pouring out your soul to everyone you meet, Boli - particularly not those with their painful ends in sight. And, of course, I reiterate: Shade would likely take the opportunity to kill you if they thought that it would effect me.”

A frown furrowed Boli’s browbone at the information and he inspected Gaster, wondering: was this a genuine attempt to save his feelings from getting hurt, or just another means of manipulation?  _ Maybe both,  _ he realized, looking away from the scientist again.  _ But he’s right… I can’t be friends with any of them - not truly. Although… _

“Yeah, okay, I get it. But I’m not going to be cruel to them, either. In fact, I’m gonna act real nice, because I know you w-won’t. You can’t. That w-way, they’ll feel like they can trust me and tell me things. To them, I’ll look like a victim, too.”

Once Boli was finished speaking he dared to glance at Gaster, unable to feel a twinge of satisfaction at the scientist’s intrigued expression.

“Good. Yes. Clever,” Gaster muttered flatly, turning his back quickly on Boli, facing the door. “But do not forget you are no match for Shade’s wit. Do not let your guard down in that haunt’s presence. Come along now, Boli.”

Inexplicably excited, the boy immediately followed afterwards, his short legs moving quickly to keep up. Neither monsters spoke until they reached the electronically sealed door to the prisoner’s ward, where Gaster stopped, looking thoughtfully at Boli. 

“Alright. You will go ahead, Boli. Your job is to separate Shade and Ilea from Angel’s door and remove them to a cell. They will want to stay together - that is fine. I will observe you from here and follow once that is done,” after turning towards a much smaller panel than the main control one, he froze and shook his skull. “Oh, of course. Take this, too.”

Turning back, Gaster handed the tray in his hands down to Boli, watching him take in the three covered bowls. Then, he typed a passcode into the door and it hissed open; the scientist stood back at a distance as if expecting an attack to explode through the door immediately.

Rattling involuntarily with a mixture of fear and anticipation, Boli ventured through the door, glancing anxiously over his shoulder as the door slid shut and locked behind him with a  _ clank. _ Breathing a deep sigh to steady himself, the boy ventured ahead, faltering before he could turn the corner.

Knowing that pushing forward would only be more difficult the longer he hesitated, Boli peered around the corner to locate the other monsters. They were only a couple meters down the hallway; the goat monster - Ilea, he assumed - was too engaged in conversation to have noticed, but Shade’s watchful eyes shifted towards the movement immediately.

“Someone’s here,” they spoke up, interrupting a musical peal of laughter from the monster beside them.

“Gaster?” Ilea wondered, sounding oddly... excited?

“No…” Shade’s voice was hushed, confused. “Some kid. No way… that assistant he mentioned…?”

“He never mentioned anyone to me.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t’ve.”

Giving his skull a firm shake, Boli pushed himself to walk around the corner at last. Involuntarily, he found himself holding his head as high as possible, spine straight, in an imitation of Gaster’s posture. With the boy’s measly height and sockets full of anxiety, however, he realized he likely looked ridiculous - or at least, that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Shade was the first to react, rising from where they rested on the floor to move between the unfamiliar skeleton and the chamber that held their soul exposed to the world. 

Not knowing what to say, Boli avoided both the monster’s eyes trying to devour him, walking past the pair to the nearest unsealed door.

“Gaster w-w-w…” Boli began when he reached the door, his soul flipping over at his tongue’s betrayal.  _ God damn it…  _ “Just go in there,” he snapped instead, giving up on his attempt at dignity. 

Ilea and Shade exchanged confused glances, both seeming hesitant as they tried to read one-another. Pushing down frustration that began to rise up - Gaster was bound to be watching scornfully on a screen somewhere - Boli briefly considered his options.

Fairly quickly, he settled on a strategy; one that wouldn’t work on Gaster even if he spent a century trying - but these monsters? Their uncertainty was plain: they didn’t know what to make of him yet. Feeling the circumstances fall under his control, Boli sighed quietly, turning back towards the and staring down at the tray in his hands.

“S...S-sorry. I only have one job here and it’s to get you two s-separated from Angel. If I don’t, Gaster’ll…” he let himself trail off, shifting his weight uneasily.

Shade glanced again to Ilea, taking in her conflicted expression before taking in Boli, unable to keep concern off their face. Was this poor cowering boy truly in danger if they disobeyed?

“Alright, you don’t gotta ask me twice.” Feigning relaxation in their voice, Shade shot a reassuring smile at the boy, though their mouth no longer glowed from their soul within them, making it impossible to tell.

“We’ll be back later, Angel,” Shade called to the closed door behind them. “The doc wants us separated for some reason.”

“Probably because he’s scared we’ll KILL him!” a snide female voice proclaimed from within the room, laughing snidely.

Flinching visibly - and well aware he’d done so - Boli turned away from the other monsters quickly, instead looking into the room he was presently trying to corral them into. 

Not answering Angel’s taunting call, Shade floated the short distance to the open door Boli stood by, scraping the soul chamber across the stone behind them. Still seeming unsure, Ilea followed only once Shade was out of sight. Stepping in last behind them, Boli silently distributed two of the three bowls on the tray he’d been given, watching as Shade rested themselves on the bed, no longer seeming wary of the young skeleton in the slightest.

“Thank you, both of you,” Boli mumbled timidly as Ilea sat at the table at last, considering the bowl of porridge she’d been given thoughtfully. With these words, he started back towards the hallway, glancing over his shoulder to ensure neither monster attempted to follow.

Before he could reach the door, though, it slammed shut without warning, clanking loudly as it locked. Though logically knowing better, Boli still shoved against the door for a moment before it fully sank in that he’d been trapped.

Swinging around to face Shade, magic flared up in Boli’s socket and he hissed, ferocious. “Bad choice! You think Gaster didn’t prepare me in case you try something? Well-!” the boy began, but his voice died away when he realized that both the other monsters looked just as shocked as he’d felt.

All was silent for a few moments until Shade suddenly rasped with a sound that was almost difficult to identify as a laugh, the lights in their eyes flickering. “He’s starting experiments on Angel today, isn’t he?” they ventured; though their words themselves were a question, their tone told Boli they already knew the answer.

Feeling himself begin to tremble, the experiment dared to nod, pressing his spine back against the door. Suddenly, the room seemed far, far too small. 

Shade laughed again, without humor nor a smile, floating up just long enough to pick their porridge up with a shadowy appendage and beginning to swallow it down, seeming oblivious to Boli’s rapid, shallow breathing.

“I’m guessing that’s your breakfast, then,” sighed Shade after a moment, looking sidelong at the boy and frowning at his terrified expression. “Here, come sit and eat. Might as well get comfortable, right? Might be here awhile.”

“...tricked me?” was all the trembling skeleton managed to say in response, though his feet stumbled forward on their own accord as if mistaking Shade’s tone for a command, too molded by Gaster to disobey.

When he sank down next to Shade, the ghost fell silent, glancing over at Ilea’s saddened expression.

“Its okay,” she sighed, sorrow and anger battling in her voice, “he tricked us, too. Even though he didn’t need to - we’d already agreed to help!”

Barely hearing her voice, Boli found himself staring into the lense of the security camera watching the room, throwing questions out to it.  _ ‘Why did you do this?’  _ the boy’s hands moved to sign the question at the camera, feeling his sockets well up with tears.  _ ‘Is this another test? Did I do something wrong?’ _

_ ‘Please,’  _ he continued trying, in spite of receiving no response, desperation beginning to make his hands tremble.  _ ‘Don’t do this to me. Please. _ ’

Feeling Shade’s scrutinizing eyes fixed on him, Boli let his hands drop, staring into the covered bowl of oatmeal in his lap desolately; he didn’t remember picking it up. Had Shade placed it there? Knowing that Gaster likely hadn’t lingered long to watch his reaction on the monitor, he gave up on his attempts. 

Doing everything he could to hold back tears, the boy uncovered his breakfast, shovelling it into his mouth if only for a distraction. Another day, another mistake he’d made somewhere along the way that he would never be able to undo - or even identify.  _ Is this because of last night? Is he still trying to punish me? I don’t understand. _

“Hey, uh, what’s your name, huh?” Shade spoke up once the young skeleton was done eating, the upper portion of their body tipping as if cocking their head curiously.

“Boli,” the experiment managed to sniffle in response, his voice tight with emotion.

“Alright, Boli. I gotta ask - is he always like this to you, or…?”

Involuntarily tensing at the question, Boli felt his soul beginning to ache worse than before, his windpipe filled with a lump to the point he feared he wouldn’t be able to speak without breaking down entirely. Avoiding looking at Shade, he instead found himself under Ilea’s genuinely concerned stare at the question. Closing his sockets, Boli shrugged.

It was clear to him now that he was no longer acting, and it occurred to him suddenly that he didn’t  _ need  _ to fabricate anything for these monsters to feel sympathetic towards him; Gaster had already given him enough true tales to fuel their pity.

“No… not all the time. S-sometimes things go perfectly. W-We even share a bed most nights. But I…” Feeling his chest beginning to quake, he tearfully rushed through his next words. “I Just don’t know w-what I keep doing wrong.” When he opened his sockets to look at the other two monsters, a few tears leaked out onto his cheekbones and he swiped them away quickly, humiliation burning into his abdominal cavity.

“Share a bed?” Ilea echoed, her eyes suddenly growing quite wide, the nature of the two skeleton’s relationships suddenly clicking in her mind. “Boli, you’re just a young lady, you can’t go-” stopping suddenly as Shade made a sharp noise of disapproval, she looked to them in confusion.

The burn of shame and dejection chewed into Boli’s spine and he buried his face in his hands, mentally craving to be anywhere else in that moment - preferably, as dust.

“I’m… I’m not…” he tried without uncovering his eyes, but couldn’t finish the sentence.  _ Am I even allowed to decide what I’m not anymore?  _ He wondered, feeling ready to tear a crack in his skull by now.

“He’s…  _ not  _ a girl, Ilea,” Shade spoke up after a moment, scoldingly. “Thought I told you not to assume monster’s genders when you called me “mister.””

Though the pain in his midsection showed no signs of easing, Boli still found himself looking to Shade, wordlessly thanking them for finishing his thought when he couldn’t.

“Oh… Oh dear. I am sorry. Stupid me,” Ilea sighed, raising a paw to cover her mouth. “But my point stands! You’re far too young to…” Sensing the other two monster’s disinterest in the end of her sentence, she let herself trail off, and the room fell into uneasy silence for a few minutes until, finally, Boli felt able to speak again.

“Gaster talked about me, then?” he wondered quietly to Shade, unable to keep a pleading edge out of his tone.

Guilt washed over Shade like a dark wave and they looked away, the lights of their eyes downcast and dim. Remnants of their conversation with Gater clung to them now like teeth sinking in, showing no signs of relenting; yet they knew. Their advice had not been what condemned this poor boy to this life. One way or another, the Royal Scientist would have tightened his strings until the creation could scarcely breathe without permission. 

But how could they not blame themselves? It seemed Gaster had followed their advice closely, and now, Shade had no choice but to face the cowering victim he’d helped create. Part of them wanted to tell themselves: Gaster’s original plan had been to beat fear into this boy. Was this not better, somehow?

What could they possibly say? Boli was evidently trapped thoroughly in this charade; if Shade told him the truth - that it was all a ruse to keep him complacent - the boy wouldn’t believe them. Or, he’d be heartbroken - or even angry enough to strike out. Even if he didn’t believe it at first, Shade knew that it would bring up questions, driving a rift between the clone and his creator. There were no good options.

Drawing a deep breath, Shade nodded. “Yes. He told me that he made you, and he was having a difficult time… handling you. He wanted my advice, but… I didn’t tell him anything. I wish I’d had something to say that could have helped you. I… uh. I’m sorry, man.”

Sockets enormous as he stared at Shade in surprise, Boli’s hands fidgeted in his lap.  _ They know? How  _ much _ do they know? About Sans? ...Portulaca? _

“ _ Made  _ him?” Ilea echoed, though barely audible. 

Nodding, Boli tapped his fingers together uncomfortably. “He used a monster’s magical essence and another s-skeleton’s s-soul to… grow me, basically. I’m less a clone and more… artificial offspring, but that’s...  not important. I’m… actually barely two w-w-weeks old.”

Muzzle crinkling in disgust, Ilea glanced towards the door. “That’s horrible. I… can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe he did  _ any  _ of this. I thought…” Not knowing how to finish her sentence, Ilea trailed off, and the trio of monsters fell silent.

Having nothing else to do, Boli stood up and walked to the cell door, putting the side of his skull against it to listen. How long was Gaster planning on keeping him locked up in here? Closing his sockets and concentrating on listening, Boli swore he could detect something, muffled by the thick steel door.

Angel was calling for help.


	32. Stockholm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried real hard to get the last chapter out before Christmas. The next chapter shouldn't take as long as this one. In theory. Anyways, enjoy.

 

Though he’d attempted to ensure all his emotions were on lockdown, a flicker of guilt still somehow found its way into Gaster’s soul upon seeing Boli’s eyes affixed on the camera, staring directly at him as it all sank in. Knowing that it would be foolish to waste time, he swiftly pulled his attention away from the monitor. The sooner this experiment was over with, the sooner he could start plastering band-aids over the new wounds in his creation’s psyche.

It took some effort, but the scientist soon regained control over his emotions, sweeping them away like dust; there was no use for them right now. By the time he reached his destination, neutrality welcomed him, blotting out almost all else; save for the fleeting fear that this injection would instantly kill ~~Angel~~ S-3.

At the very least, this could prove to be very, very interesting.

When he unlocked Angel’s door and stepped in, she regarded him with such cool hatred that he knew he’d been expected. Saying nothing to her at first, he left the door open just a crack behind him before crossing the room to place a tray carrying two covered bowls onto the table.

“Come. Sit with me,” Gaster said. Not a request. Processing this, Angel stood hesitantly from the bed and cautiously lowered herself into the chair opposite where the skeleton stood, waiting. Though she glared, Gaster found it difficult to fixate on anything but her fear. Part of him had expected it would be satisfying to see her cower, but instead, he merely found himself feeling vaguely sick to his soul.

“Eat,” the scientist instructed a moment later, not pulling his eyes away from her as he sat at the table and leaned back to observe her next move.

“I’m not touching that,” Angel replied flatly, wrinkling her lip in distaste and revealing the top row of her needlelike teeth.

_ Predictable,  _ Gaster thought, giving his head the tiniest of shakes. “How long are you planning to refuse meals, Angel? Your soul will give out eventually, no matter how determined you may be to live. Or… is that your plan to escape this fate? Starve until you turn to dust?”

Rather than answering, the scaled monster across the table scoffed softly, glaring off to the side. Deciding not to push the topic any further - that wasn’t why he was here, after all - he instead fished into his labcoat, retrieving a bulky handheld device, placing it flat on the table, screen up. 

“Very well, I do not wish to discuss that, either. Shall we focus on something more interesting?” Watching as Angel’s eyes refocused on him now - half-curious, half-wary - he couldn’t help feeling slightly relieved. 

“You are LV. 8.” Diving straight in, the scientist looked down at the device placed on the table for a moment before leaning back to examine the ceiling in staged thoughtfulness. “Now, you may correct my math, but… that does not add up, as far as I can factor. In my experience, the scale between LV increases exponentially, and monster souls gain XP differently from human souls; it takes more for ours to grow in LV. So…”

Looking up to Angel’s expression now, Gaster was unsurprised to find it fierce and unwavering; a challenge for him to continue running his tongue, to see where stirring up her temper might get him this time. Smiling cooly, he rested his elbows on the table, leaning in slightly.

“We are not so different, are we?” he murmured softly, examining Angel’s face closely. 

“What, is this a murder investigation all of a sudden?” the monster across the table sneered, sarcastic laughter adding yet more barbs to her tone. “I think you need to get your priorities sorted out. Besides, I am  _ not  _ like you. That human I killed was-”

“And the others?” Gaster wondered aloud, the unassuming smirk on his face remaining unchanged as he glanced to the device sitting on the table, thoughtful. “Well. By my knowledge, killing a human may have raised your LV by four or five - how many monsters does that equate to you murdering on top of that, I wonder? Goodness, and you come off as  _ so  _ morally superior!”

Revelling in the tense silence and the torn-up expression on Angel’s face, Gaster reached to the other pocket of  his coat, pulling out the capped injection of Determination prepared for the monster and laying it on the table next to the device already sitting there. Notable interest appeared on Angel’s face and she sat up straight immediately. 

Hostility blotted out by her intrigue, Angel reached a hand slightly towards the syringe, though it was more of a gesture than an attempt to take it. “Is that…?” she ventured, crimson eyes moving from the syringe to Gaster’s face. Seeing the unmoved, nonchalant smile still set into his skull, she drew back a little, shoulders shaking with nervous laughter. “So that’s… going in my soul, huh?”

Briefly, she glanced down to her soul  held exposed on her chest by the occasionally blinking monitor, bringing up her finned hand to cover it loosely. 

“Let us not repeat the redundant “I’ll die before you touch my soul” debacle, hm? I may be old, but my memory works fine, and we both know how that would end.” Voice supple, he tipped his skull a little, unsurprised as Angel’s expression turned to anger once more. “Besides, we are far past that, now, are we not?”

Studying Gaster’s face for a time, Angel’s hand at last dropped away from her soul and she lifted her head higher, her expression unexpectedly calm. “Teach me to do the injection.”

Caught slightly off-guard by the request - or, demand, judging by her tone - Gaster found it difficult to do anything but stare at her open-mouthed, attempting to process.

The former captain rose to her feet abruptly, taking a couple paces away from the table and standing with her back to the scientist. He could hear a sigh, almost agitated, pass through her before she spoke again. 

“Shade… Ilea. They both knew so much more about you than I ever did. Asgore never wanted to talk to you in detail, like there was some big taboo. Sometimes, I swear he talked about you like you were dead.”

The words struck like a blow to the sternum, but Gaster said nothing, emotion not quite making it to his face. Strange; for all the intensity in this monster’s array of emotions, Gaster couldn’t recall her speaking in quite this heavy of a tone. Unsure he wanted to hear the rest of what she had to say, he pretended to be rather fascinated in the soul reader on the table.

“I get it now. You’ve been around for so long,  murdered so many people that it changed you. There’s no way for you to be  _ good  _ again,” Angel sighed, finally turning back to look at him; he could feel her eyes studying him and he wondered: was she fooled by how distracted he tried to appear? 

“And you’re only going to get worse every time somebody dies because of you.”

Dread pulsed through Gaster at the words. How much did Shade and Ilea know - how much had they told the captain? Did any of the three understand the extent of his circumstances? The absolute finality? 

“So… yeah. I get it now. I get why you tried to stop me from killing that human in Snowdin. I get why you were so mad back before you… I get all of it. But that’s why you need to teach me how to inject the Determination. If I…”

Slowly, the fallen captain walked back to the table, sitting and levelling her passionate stare at him. “This doesn’t have to get any worse. You  _ can’t  _ get any worse. Because - “Who will stop you when you are done?” Nobody. Nobody could.”

Numbed, the Royal Scientist only stared straight ahead, into Angel’s eyes - but, instead of her, he could only see a glowing green socket, a flash of electric magic, red flooding his vision. Shutting his sockets tightly, a small, shaky chuckle squeezed out of him. Even if her words were shot in the dark, they had hit far too close to her target’s center. Words stuck in his windpipe like needles and he looked down to the syringe on the table, wiping at the corners of his mouth to disguise the quavering of his jaw.

“...Gaster?” Angel wondered after quite some time, leaning forward and hunching down in a bit in attempt to make eye contact.

Why not? No reasons came to mind, not one, to spur him to disagree. If she did it incorrectly somehow and skewered his data, there were other subjects waiting - and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, especially not in the wake of this monster’s dust. 

Reaching forward decisively, Gaster picked up the syringe and uncapped it, bringing it rather close to his face to inspect the dosage before giving the plunger a quick push to expel any air bubbles before holding it needlepoint first towards the other monster. 

“It is not complicated. You will only need to ensure you have pushed the needle past the soft tissue into the core of your soul, so it will sting a bit. Then, press down the plunger and remove the needle as straight as possible so as to not tear your soul. I would recommend doing it quickly, however, as-” 

Nodding firmly in response, Angel reached forward and took the syringe from Gaster before he could finish his sentence. He had been expecting some hesitation, but practically the moment he relinquished his grip, she jabbed the needle firmly into her soul. Swallowing a protest, the scientist instead watched as she drained the entire dose into her translucent soul.

This didn’t seem like such a good idea, suddenly.

Moments after the dose was administered, Angel’s hand fell open and the syringe clattered to the floor as she reeled away, gasping in shock. “I can’t see!” she cried out, her hands groping around for something to clutch onto. 

Instinct almost spurned Gaster to reach forward, but his hands were too occupied by fumbling with his voice recorder, rushing to start it up.

“Gaster?” Angel whimpered, extending her hands towards the sound of the recorder being set on the table. “I can’t  _ see  _ anything. Did you- am I…?”

The scientist quickly stopped her hands before she could touch the recorder, and he found himself holding her wrists gently, running his fingers along the smooth scar tissue from her restraints as he awaited his answer: 

Would she turn to dust before his eyes?

“I’m scared,” Angel whispered after a few minutes had passed. She closed her eyes, her grip on the scientist’s hands tightening. “It burns,” she added more quietly, barely audible.

“Are you seeing red?” the scientist ventured, hesitant. When Angel nodded, tears leaking from her squeezed-shut eyes, he added, “do you hear anything unusual? Voices, perhaps, or… laughter?”

The monster now shook her head, daring to reopen her eyes to look over at Gaster; when her eyes met his, he realized she was regaining her vision now, though slowly. Relaxing slightly, Gaster turned his attention to the soul reader, letting go of one of Angel’s hands long enough to slip on his glasses to read through the values more closely. Nothing seemed particularly interesting. Fighting off disappointment, he leaned to the side enough to look down at the syringe that had fallen to the floor, double-checking that it had been completely used up.

“Am I… going to be able to see normally soon?” Angel wondered uneasily after a minute of silence, pulling her hands back self-consciously. 

“Thus far, your reaction has been too dissimilar for me to make any accurate predictions,” he muttered absently in response. 

“Dissimilar from whose?” she asked, flashing to suspicion in an instant. “You didn’t hurt the others, did you? I’d-”

“No, no. Erm… rodents,” Gaster explained swiftly; a quick, simple lie to sell. Shade would piece together that he had been experimenting on himself easily, but her? 

Shaking his head, the scientist brushed off the thoughts just in time for a jump in the data on his reader to catch his attention and he leaned forward, frowning. The upwards trend of adrenaline and pulse could point to simple fear, but why suddenly-?

Looking over at Angel as a shaky, gusting breath shook her chest, Gaster tipped his skull slightly. Her eyes were fixed somewhere behind him with such paralyzing fear that he nearly turned back himself. Then she rose to her feet, backing herself into a corner; when her back hit the wall, she cowered down to the floor.

“Hallucination onset seemed to take longer in Ang-  _ Subject Three’s  _ case,” Gaster muttered lowly into the recorder before rising to his feet and taking a step towards her. 

“Don’t,” the cornered monster whispered, her voice suddenly childlike as she curled up, trying to make herself as small as physically possible. “I can’t - don’t know what you want. Don’t hurt me.”

Curiosity captured, the scientist advanced another step towards her, measuring her response as she buried her face into her knees, smothering sobs into them. “Do you know where you are, Angel?” he wondered, bending his spine slightly to look at her. “Can you even hear me?”

No response ever came, however, as the woman began to quake with sobs to the extent that she wouldn’t be able to speak regardless, covering her soul with both hands, clutching at it tightly as if protecting against invisible aggressors. 

Finding himself no longer able to spectate on her inward struggle, Gaster turned his back, settling himself in the chair which faced away from her instead. If all went as he anticipated, it wouldn’t be too much longer before she lost consciousness. 

Deafening herself to her crying and pleading, Gaster picked up the soul monitor in one hand and the voice recorder in the other, busying himself with reading the numbers aloud in a monotone voice. 

“Did I whimper so pathetically, too?” he wondered, venturing a glance over at Angel, unsurprised to see her position hadn’t changed much. Though he hadn’t been sure what to expect, it hadn’t been… this. “Hallucinations have lasted for well over fifteen minutes. Subject seems to have no grasp of where she is. It seems the Determination triggered the memory of a trauma. Perhaps it simply causes a fear response, and the soul only fills the gaps. It is difficult to say at this stage.”

“Gaster?” the voice, hoarse and exhausted, nearly caused Gaster to jump, and he quickly turned in his chair to face the other monster, tipping his head.

“Are you back with us, now?” he asked softly, rising from his seat and setting aside the devices in his hand, taking a step towards Angel.

“I… did you…?”

Freezing at the unfinished question, Gaster reached back swiftly to stop the recorder, piecing together the rest of her words fairly easily. “I did not lay a finger on you,” the scientist growled, stonily, facing her once more. “I believe I have already said this: I have absolutely no desire-”

“You wouldn’t have to.” The interruption came stark and heavy, burdened with the pain that came with experience. The words struck Gaster like an open palm and he found himself staring down at the floor, his jaw clenched tight.

Conflicted emotions wrestled for dominance in his chest cavity; pity, indifference, scorn. Something else, too - something almost unfamiliar, but warm and welcoming. It was that which he took into his soul the best he could, decisively.

Kneeling, though at a distance, the skeleton fixed his eyes firmly on Angel’s. “I would not,” he vowed, shaking his skull. “I have committed my crimes. But that, to you? I could not do more than bluff.”

“But you have,” she muttered, bleakly. “To someone. Right?”

Averting his eyes, Gaster’s hand raised to touch his sternum, briefly, before it dropped again and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I saw you flinch. Either you’ve done it, or had it done to you.”

Glancing around the room for a distraction, Gaster fished for words to change the topic as quickly as he could. Hearing Angel hiss suddenly in pain, his attention jerked back towards her; realizing she was struggling to uncurl her finned legs so that she could stand, the skeleton dove for the opportunity.

“Allow me-” he began, trailing off and stopping the advance of his hands as Angel’s eyes affixed on him, warily hostile. Sighing crossly, he shook  his skull. “You were crumpled up for practically an hour, you are bound to be in pain. Just let me help you off the floor, hm?” 

He snapped the words in a rush, not waiting for permission this time as he reached forward, tucking one arm behind the crook of her knees and the other against her back, lifting her up off the floor with a stifled groan of effort. As quickly as possible, he set her on the bed; it made a suitable replacement for the cold floor, at the very least.

Stepping back promptly, Gaster walked back over to the table and picked up his recorder and the soul reader, dropping them back into their respective pockets before bending to pick the Determination syringe off the floor and re-capping the tip, storing it away as well. 

“You’re so…” Angel hissed just before he could settle back down at the table, though she suddenly looked too exhausted to speak. “Confusing. You’re hard to hate. But that’s especially why… I have to. But you keep…”

When she trailed off, eyes drifting, Gaster made  no attempt to draw more words from her, instead lowering his skull slightly, pupils focused on the floor. If she didn’t hate him, what would it mean?

Nothing. It made no difference whether she preferred to see him dead, or sympathized with him. It didn’t matter whether he tried to deceive her into thinking he still had kindness left in him, nor if he exploited her trauma to the highest degree simply for his own amusement.

_ *If it doesn’t matter, then why are you bothering to be nice? You have to wonder. _

Intentions were lost somewhere in the labyrinth of his ambiguity and he gave up on finding an answer. Would anything he could say matter when it was all over?

Looking over to Angel, he watched her eyes slip closed, her legs slowly stretching out before she rolled onto her side, facing him. “Leave the food here, m’kay? I’m gonna eat later, I’m just…” she trailed off in a yawn, showing a mouthful of sharp teeth, before falling silent.

A small smirk pulled at Gaster’s mouth, though, inwardly, he could feel a tearing sensation deep in his hollow ribcage. He’d lost count of the times he’d asked himself by now, but the question returned to him yet again as he watched Angel drift off to sleep swiftly, looking unnaturally peaceful.

_ What in all of creation am I doing here? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 100k words to me.


	33. Difficult Questions 2.0

Awakening to an empty bed just as he had for the past week, Gaster rolled over into the empty space. Even pressing his face into the sheets on Boli’s side and breathing deeply, no hint of the scent of apples remained; no sign he could fathom, only memories to assure him that the experiment had once gladly crawled into bed next to him.

A line had been crossed. One strike too many, the wrong action with confused intentions, misread. But the right and the wrong seemed to blend together and Gaster didn’t know what to fix, nor how. None of it made sense.

No apology appeased the boy; no justification, it seemed, would be enough for him this time. No threats, no bribes. Perhaps only time would bring forgiveness; but that, of course, was an answer only time itself could give. But Gaster didn’t _ have  _ time.

Standing slowly and stiffly from the bed, Gaster hobbled tiredly to the dresser, picking out his favorite outfit; time for a last ditch effort, he decided. As he dressed himself, noting the weariness clinging deep in his bones, he also decided that it was time to boost his dosage of Determination in the near future.

Popping a pill from his dresser drawer to take the edge off the discomfort, the scientist trudged from his bedroom to the kitchen. It wouldn’t be long before Boli made his way there himself to make his morning coffee; Gaster lay in wait, sipping from his own mug and leaning his elbows on the counter, back to the door.

The lights flickered on all throughout the Lab as minutes passed.  _ Not much longer now,  _ he thought, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the countertop.

The shuffling, sluggish footsteps of a half-asleep skeleton forewarned Gaster of the boy’s approach. Not turning to face him, Gaster remained planted at the counter in front of the brewer, waiting. Seven days of avoidance sparked tension in the air and Boli’s sockets went from half-asleep to completely alert in an instant.

At first, he Boli simply waited, as if he genuinely thought Gaster didn’t realize he was in the way. Soon processing that he had had no intention of budging, though, Boli turned to leave the kitchen again. It was too early for these games.

Seething inwardly with frustration, Gaster stole a look over his shoulder just in time to catch Boli faltering in the doorway to see his backwards glance.

Too much smoke, too many mirrors. Sighing pointedly, Boli swung around to face his creator, confrontational in an instant. “ _ What? _ ” he snapped, taking a step back into the kitchen.

Reflex led a smug of self-surety onto Gaster’s face at the hostile tone, but he forced it off, instead reaching for something at least somewhat sincere. Now was not the time to play any of his usual gambits.

“You will not even speak to me politely, to ask me to move aside? Not even rudely, for that matter?” Gaster wondered, voice quiet. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure how to be completely transparent with the boy. Honesty, in itself, was rapidly becoming its own act. Was any of what he felt real? Was there any way to tell? Would he ever know?

As Gaster turned to face the clone, all that found its way into his soul was genuine anxiety, untainted by self-interest. Had tricking the boy truly irrevocably broken whatever precarious tower of emotions Gaster thought he’d been building?

Too weighted to return Boli’s expectant glare any longer, Gaster let his focus fall to the tile underfoot. “I… I am sorry, Boli. I have already said that, so I do not expect it to mean any more to you now. I have asked, but will ask again: is there anything I can do to right my wrongs? Any apology or reparation?”

“Why do you have to talk like that?” the experiment cut in suddenly, fiercely. “You’re not nobility anymore. You’re not anything. You’re so busy keeping up appearances for a life that ended decades ago that you don’t even know yourself. You don’t even know how you’re supposed to act. It’s  _ sad. _ ”

Not knowing how to respond, the Royal Scientist’s mouth fell open, stuttering to fight the well-placed words, but he found he didn’t quite manage to speak quickly enough.

“Your parents, Portulaca… Asgore, the king before him… Toriel. They’re not here. So…” Boli shook his skull firmly enough to produce a small rattle, frowning over at Gaster. “Turn off the useless autopilot for a second and tell me  _ why. _ ”

Clamping his jaw shut, Gaster scrambled for an answer. “I didn’t want you getting in my way,” he blurted before he could lie, or even garnish the words. “Progress is all that matters. It is my priority. I would not -  _ won’t _ \- deny that I have feelings for you I never intended to develop, but all the love in the world can’t stop me. I can’t let it. I can’t stop - certainly not before I’ve even  _ begun -  _ for the sake of my feelings.”

Now that the words were spilling out, the scientist was no longer sure if he could stop them. “Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have tried to stop me from doing the injection - or gotten in the way of my methods?”

_ He’s finally talking,  _ Boli realized, holding his tongue and simply shaking his head, praying that Gaster would go on, in any direction at all. At this point, the boy didn’t care if he started talking in detail about the most mundane thing imaginable.

“If I had let you into that room with me, Boli, I wouldn’t have been able to think of anyone else. But if I let myself - if I slow down for you, look at what I’ve done, it will  _ all  _ catch up. Every monster, every human, every betrayal I  _ revelled  _ in. If I’m not moving forward, then what? Fall back into drinking to stave off every thought, as I did when I was done with the CORE? Or, as before that, work ‘til I think I’ve gone blind, though I see my nightmares perfectly clearly?”

“By all means, Boli, if that is what you prefer for me - and for the fate of monsters - I’ll… I can stop. Though, I would likely… not…”  Struggling to articulate for a moment, he looked around the room as if for a distraction.

“Continue... to live.” Gaster finished, practically gasping for breath, mentally grasping for a way to backpedal, pull the words back out of the air. Just like that, in moments, he realized, the boy had learned more about his years underground than he’d let slip to any monster. 

Holding back tears that would only ask for sympathy he knew very well he didn’t deserve, Gaster bowed his skull to the young skeleton before him. Stunned into silence, Boli decided he couldn’t face the pain laid bare before him and shut his sockets, shaking his skull.

“No. I don’t w-want you to quit. Don’t w-want you to go round two with a Determination overdose, either.  _ This.  _ This is what I wanted. I’m s-so tired of the games, Gaster. I just w-wanted you to talk to me.” Despite his inability to look at Gaster, his voice still managed to hold relatively steady.

“Ever since the day you…” stopping, Boli’s sockets opened once more. “Since you tried to kill yourself, you…”

Gravely, the taller skeleton dared to make eye contact with Boli. Now wasn’t the time to begin lying again, but how could he begin to tell the experiment the entire truth about it all?

_ From the beginning,  _ Gaster thought decidedly, nodding.

“Would you be willing to accompany me to the CORE today, Boli?” he asked, cringing a little as the other skeleton’s sockets narrowed, suspicious. “I’m not asking so that I might avoid talking to you. I give you my word. In fact, it’s related to… all this. This is not how I intended to show you the CORE, but… you will need to know some things about it before I tell you.”

Confused as to how the CORE factored into what should have been, in Boli’s mind, a simple topic, he echoed, “tell me? Tell me what?”

Breathing deeply in attempt to chase the anxiety from his chest cavity, Gaster reached a hand up to his cracked skull, pressing his palm above his eye. 

“Everything.”

  
  


Between the whir of the CORE and the dense, hot steam that hissed up from below, Gaster found he had to raise his voice to be heard while he shepherded Boli through the convoluted corridors around his invention.

“The majority of the CORE rearranges itself constantly to create a different path to the main power room; for security purposes, only the staff responsible for the arrangements and myself know of the path at any given time,” the scientist spoke, after a long, quiet walk, voice much less clear than usual against the background noise.

“Guess it’d be a pretty big deal if the CORE went down, huh?” the experiment mused, barely audible above the background noise.

“Well, it supplies oxygen, light, heat, and additionally, it is an incredibly dangerous machine in its own right; I don’t think I put it together to not violently explode if a fool tampers with the wrong setting,” Gaster rambled, glancing back to eye Boli, amusement creeping into his voice now. “So, yes, a very “big deal,” indeed.”

Swinging the picnic basket he’d brought in his hand, Gaster picked up his pace a bit, hurrying to the next compartment, though they were reasonably ahead of schedule for the path to switch. Boli managed to keep up despite looking around fascinatedly, trying to take everything in at once, as he so often did.

“This is probably the w-weirdest first date ever,” Boli chuckled after a moment, swerving to follow Gaster as he took a sudden turn down a narrow corridor.

Unable to help a smirk, Gaster glanced back at the small skeleton. “Do not worry. We will go on a proper date eventually. Somewhere nice. I will wear a suit and pull out your chair for you and everything. It will all be very proper, until I take you home and rattle your bones. Would you like that?”

Chuckling nervously, Boli pushed the knuckle of his index finger between his teeth, biting down. Aware he was blushing too furiously to pass it off as the heat of their surroundings, he managed a nod, struggling simply to stay composed.

Nothing short of delighted by the response, Gaster faced ahead once again, a slight bounce appearing in his step. 

Perhaps cleaning up this mess wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sofctore smut warning for the next chapter, probably.


	34. I'm not going to grace this chapter with a title

“S-so. This is it, huh?” Boli’s voice broke a long, stunned silence, shaking, though he tried to ask the question nonchalantly.

“Indeed it is,” Gaster agreed absentmindedly, continuing his task of laying out the picnic he’d packed, including a thinly padded blanket which he first laid across the cold, hard metal floor.

“It’s creepy.”

“It has that effect on people.”

Looking over to Boli now, the scientist watched closely as the boy stepped close to the railing, timidly peering over. No steam rose from the depths, no sound of machinery; nothing but unbroken, yawning darkness farther down than he could estimate.

“Is that where the energy comes from? Does that go down to the core of the planet?” the boy ventured, resting his chin on the high railing to stare, unblinking, down into the dark.

Shaking off hesitation, Gaster gave his shoulders a shrug. “Actually, CORE is an acronym - Circuit Of Renewable Energy. It has nothing to do with the core of the planet at all. Here, Boli, I would like to show you something.” Standing from where he knelt, the scientist held out a hand towards the boy.

Part of his soul melted when the clone scuttled over swiftly to take his hand. Briefly captured by the boy’s expectant gaze, Gaster briefly leaned his head down to brush his mouth over the boy’s hand before leading the way towards a massive terminal anchored to the far wall of the chamber. Releasing Boli’s hand, he redirected his attention to a control panel nearly above the boy’s head, pulling up as many blueprints as would fit onto the screen.

Saying nothing, Gaster waited in silence as the boy’s sockets narrowed a bit, his smirk tightening with concentration as he pieced it together; it wouldn’t belong before, with all Sans’ knowledge and his own cleverness, drew its conclusion.

“Huh… these are the  _ final  _ blueprints, right?” Boli wondered at last, stepping closer, his sockets scrunching into a squint. “Doesn’t make much s-sense. ‘Ccording to this, the CORE only has a s-small geothermic aspect, and it’s pretty well all  _ used  _ in… this whole mess.” He gestured towards a section of the designs, his hand freezing in midair as he suddenly turned back to stare towards the abyss he’d been staring into minutes ago.

“ _ Oh, _ ” he gasped with sudden realization, raising a hand to his mouth. 

“A substantial amount of geothermal energy  _ is  _ used to power the structure itself, in all its quirks and puzzles, but the true output of the CORE comes from-”

“The Void,” Boli finished the sentence for the scientist, staring up at him now, his teeth parting slightly in disbelief. “This is amazing. All the calculations, everything I ever s-studied, s-said it w-was  _ theoretically  _ a s-source of limitless energy, but you! Of course. Of  _ course  _ you’d figure it out. It’s incredible. You’re incredible.”

Cringing involuntarily away from the praise, Gaser focused on putting the terminal back into standby, trying to appear busy. Once done, he dared to glance back at Boli, not surprised to see that his impressed expression had hardly lapsed. 

“Of course… You can speak as highly of me as you wish, so long as you are also aware how dangerous it was for me to do this. I could have collapsed the entire cavern and buried us all alive - or much worse. So, the stars happened to align and I got away with playing God. I had the opportunity to make a perfect machine with the CORE, but I instead made one which twisted the laws of reality. Because I felt I could.”

“I mean, your favorite pastime is doing s-stuff you shouldn’t ‘cuz you can,” Boli joked, turning his back to the terminal to lean against it, looking up at Gaster. “Kinda like making me. But I think I turned out okay, all things considered, right? And s-so did the CORE.”

Returning the knowing smirk Boli aimed up at him, Gaster tipped his head slightly. “You are profoundly attractive when you enable me, Boli,” he quipped, welcoming the unfamiliar itch in his soul stirred up by the expression in the boy’s sockets. A bit of flirting couldn’t possibly go awry.

A chuckle, much lower than the boy’s usual vocal range, was the boy’s only response at first. Then, he reached a hand upwards, brushing along Gaster’s shirt as it went, until it rested on the scientist’s sternum, caressing up and down slightly.

_ Ah, yes. That is where it goes wrong,  _ he recalled, fighting the urge to pull away.  _ He is still looking for something I cannot give him.  _

“Well, this was a mistake,” Gaster announced, half-turning away from Boli.

“Aw. W-what’s the matter?” The other skeleton piped, voice soft, though carefully aimed, pointful. “I’m s-starting to think the big bad w-wolf’s got no teeth. You’re gonna have to take a bite out of me to prove me wrong at this point.”

“Big bad w-?” Gaster began to echo the words before they registered as familiar, but trailed off quickly, facing up to Boli once more. “The way you phrased that almost sounded like a challenge.” Though his voice was neutral with the observation, his sockets burned with the faintest indigo undertone, as if to remind the boy what he was poking at. “I told you I  _ can’t _ .”

Sighing exaggeratedly, Boli leaned his skull back to look at the high metal ceiling of the chamber. “Oh, please. As if there’s not w-ways for us to have a little fun that leave your s-soul out of it. Nevermind the metaphor - do you just not  _ want  _ me? ‘Cuz I gotta say, the look on your face right now… Kinda reminds me of when you mapped my soul.”

“Then I will extend to you the same question I did then: are you certain that is what you want?” 

“I’m really starting to lose patience,” sighed Boli, letting his skull droop back so that it banged against the metal terminal, though not hard enough that the boy cringed. “How else can I s-say it? Take off your clothes.”

Sockets widening, Gaster put a hand against the stomach of his shirt. “Pardon me?”

“I could rip them off, but that’s a  _ very  _ nice shirt.”

Eyes round, Gaster stared past Boli now, stunned. “What, you mean… here? Now?”

Smirk turning snide, the boy rolled his eyes. “W-what, is the Void gonna get embarrassed? Nobody’s watching. So, why not? I want it, you want it, so what’s holding you back?”

Taking a deep breath, Gaster stepped forward, lifting Boli’s weight by his ribcage and setting him carefully on a level part of the control panel after checking there were no buttons for his weight to push on. Now almost level with him, Gaster looked into the other skeleton’s sockets thoughtfully.

“Tell me… why?” He ventured after a moment, steepling his fingers in front of his chest. When the boy only tipped his skull inquisitively, he sighed, the sound edged by frustration as he fished for words that he knew should have been simple.

“Why do you want this? Why would you want  _ anything  _ like that after I tried to r-” he tripped on the word, clearing his throat. “I don’t understand. Why do you still want me?”

“Because, it feels good. It’s that s-simple. That’s it. You’re making it w-way more complicated than it is. I don’t expect to feel like you love me. I know you’re not romantic, or s-sweet, or whatever. Besides. I…” Boli paused from his rushed answer, his cheekbones filling with color as he shook his skull. “I don’t think that’s w-what I w-want.”

Unable to help feeling surprised, Gaster leaned back from Boli, wondering: could it be that simple? This seemed like the type of thing that would come back to bite him later, yet… Desire, and shame for that desire, burned behind his ribs and he leaned his head forward, leaning it squarely on Boli’s sternum.

“W-we don’t have to,” the boy blurted quickly, then took a deep breath, gently cupping his fingers against the back of Gaster’s skull, caressing it lightly. “I just thought… I don’t know. I thought if w-we both w-want to, but you feel like you  _ can’t,  _ because… w-whatever your reasons are. I thought I could help. But I can wait. If you’re not ready, I-”

Drawing a deep breath, Gaster stood up once more, interrupting Boli as he reached his hands to the boy’s, directing them to the bottom of his shirt. After making sure the boy’s fingers hooked around the hem to lift it to his bottom ribs he released his wrists, waiting for the small skeleton’s next move.

Realizing the permission he’d been given, the experiment felt his hands beginning to tremor, but he feigned confidence as he lifted the fabric up past his clavicle and bunched it up in the curve of Gaster’s first rib on either side, pinning it out of the way. 

Feigning calmness, Gaster watched the boy expectantly as his fingers slowly played up and down his ribcage, eventually reaching past it to lightly run his fingertips up and down his spine, explorative. 

“That okay?” Boli wondered, examining the scientist’s expressionless face.

Sockets faraway, dark, Gaster reached forward to lift Boli’s shirt, pulling it over his skull with a tug and placing it neatly on the control panel. Leaning the weight of his torso on the boy, he waited, listening to the catch in the other skeleton’s breath. With Boli’s high perch, their sternums were nearly level; save for the bone cages between, their souls hovered, almost touching. 

“You’re bluffing,” Boli mumbled, reaching a hand up to Gaster’s sternum and holding onto it, as if trying to cement the scientist’s closeness.

“I know,” Gaster replied quietly, tipping his head so that his mouth was nearly touching the side of Boli’s skull as he whispered now, softly. “Perhaps I simply want to see how you react. This is interesting, you know. You are a  _ very  _ interesting experiment.”

The words burnt hotly and sourly down Boli’s spine; pain, shame, desire, all familiar. Leaning back to stare Gaster levelly in the sockets, he forced magic around his own soul, enough for it to pass through the bones in between and into Gaster’s chest cavity, invading what little security was left. 

At first, an almost panicked expression tightened Gaster’s face, but nearly instantly, he reigned it under his control; the lights in his sockets vanished once more and he waited, expression severe. For a moment Boli simply waited for the back of the other skeleton’s hand to come up and strike him, or some snarled words, but moments later Boli realized: Gaster seemed almost frozen, swaying ever-so-slightly on his feet, barely breathing.

Swiftly extending his magic once more, Boli yanked his soul back into its own space, reaching forward to hold onto both of Gaster’s hands. “Hey, it’s okay. W-we don’t have to do this anymore. I’m s-sorry.” 

Fumbling inaccurately through the dissociation hanging heavy over his mind, Gaster’s hands pulled away and crept slowly up Boli’s spine, into his chest cavity; finding the boy’s soul, he pulled it into the open, staring blankly into it. Soaking up its presence, he drew a deep breath; there was so much to be seen in it, so much to feel. So unfamiliar.  

Not quite thinking through his  mental fog, Gaster bent his head down, parting his teeth to press the soul between them into the soft, warm insides of his mouth. Delayed, almost as if the action took a moment to register, an ungraceful whimper fell out of Boli’s mouth, drawing out into a tight, restrained moan.

Stifling a laugh muffled by his mouthful of soul, Gaster winked one socket, his pupils glowing brighter now as they returned at the sound.  _ ‘We don’t have to do this,’  _ he signed to the boy, his mouth curving into a mocking shape, hands returning to cup the boy’s soul.

Laughing softly, quietly, the skeleton seated on the control panel gave his skull a shake and angled his arms into Gaster’s chest cavity, clasping onto his soul firmly with both hands; though careful to keep an eye on the scientist’s expression, he found himself working his thumbs against the soul eagerly, trying to recall what little he’d learned from their last - dissatisfactory - experience.

Amusement faded away into concentration and Gaster narrowed his sockets slightly as he worked his tongue against Boli’s soul, gingerly, watching his reactions. Mirroring the expression, Boli pulled Gaster’s soul close to his face, hesitating uncertainly for long enough that he felt Gaster pause as well; at last, he dared to flick his tongue over Gaster’s soul, flinching away from whatever reaction he expected.

Though he’d scarcely felt the quick swipe, Gaster knew that the instant tension had been felt in the way his teeth had dug slightly into the boy’s soul. Knowing he couldn’t take back the reaction, he decided to simply not draw any more attention to it and continued lapping at the boy’s soul, turning it in his hands. Though he’d been silent up until now, another noise escaped Boli after a few minutes of searching, telling Gaster he’d tracked down a sensitive zone.

Biting down hard on his knuckle, Boli slid closer to the edge of his perch to graze his pelvic bone against Gaster’s, pushing the heel of his palm in a long motion against the Boss Monster’s soul in his hand.

Groaning deep in his windpipe, Gaster gave into the instinct to roll his hips towards Boli in turn, grinding the fabric of their pants together in a long motion. Arousal, far too rampant now for him to push down, coiled humidly in his soul, begging for attention. Not measuring his actions for one fleeting moment, he reached forward to shove his hand against Boli’s, driving his soul close to the boy’s uncertain face. 

Flushing at the gesture, the small skeleton obediently opened wide, taking in as much of the other monster’s soul as he could and dragging his tongue across it, spreading warm saliva across the surface.  _ Tingly,  _ Boli found himself thinking, opening a socket to peek at Gaster.

Fighting a pleasurable shudder, the scientist began to suck gently at the surface of the boy’s soul, unable to help grinning when, at last, an unrestrained moan escaped the other monster. Basking in the sound, and the way it sent vibrations through his own soul, he switched back to working his tongue against the sweet spot he’d located.

Legs jerking slightly against the overstimulation, Boli dragged his tongue in long, firm strokes in response, his sockets narrowing with concentration. The taste of black licorice and burnt sugar flooded his senses, threatening to overtake him; he closed his eyes, let it consume him.

The temperature of the CORE seemed to rise slowly as the two skeletons pulled one another further and deeper into the act, their muffled moans gradually blending until they were in rhythm, indistinguishable from one-another. 

All too soon, the boy thought, the heat of climax began to wrap down Boli’s spine; in reaction, he clamped his legs tightly around Gaster’s hipbones, locking their pelvic bones tight together to grind hard against him. Breathing harder with each passing moment, the boy opened his sockets just long enough to peer at Gaster’s expression. 

Seeing the expression there - nothing more than rapture on the scientist’s brightly flushed face - a wave of relief crashed over him and he gave in, release overtaking him.

Throwing his skull back and letting out a near-feral moan, Boli lost himself to the fits of climax, involuntarily clamping his hands down firmly on Gaster’s soul; he could feel the scientist’s hands caressing his soul gently now, carrying him through the orgasm, and soft, triumphant laughter.

As the pleasure subsided, Boli abruptly remembered himself, bending forward towards Gaster’s soul, intent on finishing what he’d started. Before he could quite latch his mouth back onto the soul, slimy hands gripped his wrists, spreading green film onto them; though the grip was relatively gentle, Boli instinctively flinched.

“That is enough now, is it not?” The scientist’s voice registered as rather odd to the boy in that moment; strangely light. Anxiety instantly bubbled up in Boli and he subconsciously drew tiny circles against the soul in his hands.

“But I w-w-a… I w-want to-” the boy attempted, casting a pleading gaze to Gaster. Seeing the soul aura splattered around the scientist’s mouth, the color in the boy’s face redoubled and he stumbled on an apology, fighting to spit out the words.

“Shh, it is okay. You should not feel guilty,” Gaster soothed hastily, fighting down his inward frustration - why was this going so poorly? As a last effort to at least ease the boy’s evident shame, he ran his tongue over his aura-coated teeth and leaned a bit closer to Boli, quietly crooning, “you taste wonderful, after all.”

Seeming yet more mortified and flustered by the statement, Boli found himself looking around the CORE chamber as if searching for somewhere to hide; anywhere to be but under the hungry eyes of his creator.

“Boli?” Gaster attempted again after a few silent moments, letting his hands drop away from the boy’s wrists and tipping his skull. Feeling genuine worry begin to come across his mind, he leaned over a bit, attempting to make eye contact with the other skeleton. “Boli, what did I do?”

“W-why w-won’t you let me just,” the experiment began tearfully, lifting Gaster’s soul which he still held in his hands slightly, “do this for you? I thought w-we… thought it was okay. W-why-?”

Concern and openness vanished from Gaster’s face instantly and he swayed back a bit, gaze dropping. “I do not deserve-” he began, but stopped swiftly as he realized anger was beginning to slip into his voice.

“S-so? Neither do I!” The boy interrupted, his hands clenching tighter on Gaster’s soul as he raised his voice slightly towards the other skeleton.

_ God. What was I thinking?  _ Gaster questioned himself silently, bunching his sleeve up around his hand and wiping it thoroughly across his mouth until he’d cleared away the stain, avoiding Boli’s eyes.

A tense minute ticked by before, at last, Boli’s grip released and he slumped his weight forward heavily against Gaster’s chest, huffing frustratedly. The noise devolved into faint sniffling and Boli let himself cry his frustrated tears quietly into the scientist’s sweater. 

Perfectly silent, Gaster wrapped his arms around the small skeleton tightly, pressing close and planting a peck on top of his skull. He could only hope the gesture would say what his words could not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone says it - if anyone was gonna - yeah, this might seem pretty ooc for Gaster.
> 
> ~~'Til ya think this is just another way of holding power over Boli.~~
> 
> Might be a bit before the next update again now, I'm dealing with some shit.


	35. Difficult Answers

Laying flat on their backs on the blanket spread out over the hard floor of the CORE chamber, the two skeletons coexisted in relatively content silence, picking away at the packed lunch between them. Time passed easily and Gaster let himself breathe, though he couldn’t truly feel at ease knowing that he’d already botched the “fun” part of this trip. Somehow.

While he sorted out his words, Gaster listened to the other monster’s dozing breaths as drowsiness from fullness and satisfaction - at least, physical - took him over. Deciding against disturbing him, the scientist stayed silent for longer than he could say, until he heard Boli start awake with a sudden snort, sitting up and looking around, disoriented.

“Guh,” the boy groaned, rubbing his sockets. “S-sorry. Didn’t mean to drift off on ya. We heading back soon?”

Though not answering verbally, the scientist shook his skull. Suddenly, the words he’d spent so long piecing together, trying to polish, no longer seemed possible to say. They threatened to scatter from his mind like snowflakes in the wind.

“Right. You s-still have something to tell me, don’t you?” Boli prompted, reaching into the picnic basket and retrieving the thermos of coffee he’d packed from the basket, which he drank straight from.

“Indeed. I did not bring you here merely to eat out your soul; that was a bit of a deviation from my plans,” the scientist quipped, but when the boy only rolled his eyes at the words, he decided to quickly move past the topic. 

“...As you know, I have… problems,” Gaster began, his palms pressed together in front of his chest as he struggled to elaborate. “Er… Chronic insomnia, substance abuse. You once said I am “not well.” It was probably an understatement.” 

“Then w-why don’t you… w-why did you never get help?” Boli piped quickly. “I know it must’ve been hard when you first fled down here and had to build the CORE,  but… you’ve had so much time since then. Right?”

“Because I did this to myself. Because I do not deserve help. Because I am, in actuality, making all my problems up. Because I hate myself. Or any other typical answer you might find in a psychology textbook. Pick whichever you like best.”

“I’m… s-sorry.”

Swallowing a bitter laugh, Gaster pressed on. “Unrelated to that, I have done more horrible things than you could count; things that I wish you could not imagine, but instead, have been a victim of. But you know that. You know what I am.”

“I know I have implied it in the past, but I will say outright now that the tensions between monsters and humans may have been at an all-time high when the battle happened, but it likely never would have been pushed over the edge if not…” he hesitated, wishing he knew a better way to say it; wishing he knew Boli wouldn’t look at him differently forever once the words were out. “If not for the experiments on human souls the king was overseeing. I knew we were killing them. Blood on my hands. Dust on my hands. I will never escape it; I will never stop feeling responsible.”

Thoroughly unable to look in Boli’s direction, he opted to stand now, looking off in the direction of the drop into the Void. “I thought somehow, I could make up for what I have done. I built the CORE to make life bearable underground. Studied the barrier in hopes one day I might break us all free. Dedicated time to erase trauma from my fellow survivor’s minds. Yet, despite that…”

“I continually come back to who I am and what I have done. I’ve caused so much pain to those who have loved me, done so with a smile. A day will come when I do the same to you, Boli. That you won’t be able to stop me, and I-...” choking on the words in his windpipe, Gaster stepped back towards the blanket and sat, though on the very edge, curling and uncurling his hands against the fabric.

“I might kill you, Boli. But more likely, I will only make you wish you were never created. You understand all this, do you not? You understand that, not once in my lifetime, has goodness won out over my LOVE - that I, unerringly, give in and fall to corruption?”

Stopping for breath, Gaster dared only then to look over at the boy, though completely uncertain of what to expect from him in that moment. Boli’s expression was unreadable as he stared into the distance.

“Knowing all that, I must ask…” Breath catching somewhere between his chest cavity and his windpipe, weighing heavily, he shifted towards Boli, trying to catch his vacant gaze. “Do you believe even the worst person can change? That anyone can be a good person, if they just try?”

The experiment said nothing for longer than Gaster could estimate, though perhaps it was only a few moments - regardless, it felt like an eternity before Boli turned towards him. Making no moves of affection - not even the slightest of smiles appearing on his face - Boli lowered his skull, shutting his sockets.

In that moment, the boy thought of Toriel - the sacrifices Gaster didn’t remember making. He thought of the villainous king he’d sold his soul to, to be shaped into a villain himself. All forgotten now, and left from it all, a lost and self-loathing monster stuck inside a shell stained with LV. Yet, something drove Gaster on when all logic, reason, and moral complexities told him that it was time to quit. Nothing would ever matter more to him. 

It seemed plainly clear now, even at a point where it seemed the scientist wanted to turn back, that there was no hope. He was in a tailspin, yet seemed to think otherwise. A stab of pity needled Boli’s soul, but he pushed past it, holding onto the answer he’d found.

“No.” The response came from Boli flatly and he looked up to Gaster’s pained expression, solemn. “In fact, I know you’ll  _ never  _ change. It’s a cycle that came far before me and it’ll continue when I’m gone. I know that people like you will always exist, and they’ll keep going. Not for any real reason - just because they can. And because they can, they have to.”

“You won’t stop - you won’t  _ change  _ \- until you’ve reached the end. But I don’t care. I’ll be right there with you - I’ll be the end. Because.... I can. And I have to.”

As the words sank in, Gaster found himself laying back again, staring up at the steam-wreathed ceiling. Truthfully, the response had been so far off from what he’d expected that he didn’t know how to receive the words. He’d anticipated coddling - for his actions to be enabled and excused. Or for Boli to pretend he hadn’t said anything at all.

Instead, he’d gotten an answer with maturity and wisdom far beyond what he had thought the naive experiment capable of. It seemed the boy specialized in exceeding expectations. At every turn, Gaster realized in that moment, he was being pulled farther in. He’d accepted quite some time ago that maintaining the distance he felt ever-present with other monsters was impossible with Boli. Yet, never before had the knowledge ached so badly.

No matter what, it seemed, Boli would lick his wounds and make his way back to Gaster with open arms, a smirk askew on his face. The thought was more painful than he could properly measure, for it came with the inevitable question: What would it mean for the boy when he was gone forever?

“I told you that I don’t remember what happened when I took the second dose of DT that day. That was the truth - what I did not tell you was that it is only one of a number of similar episodes I have experienced since I first handled Chara’s soul. However - you must already know I am going to say this - I will not stop. I am sorry to burden you with yet more weight, Boli, but… If I do not seem myself in the slightest…” Falling silent, Gaster found himself at a loss for how to continue, even with all his verbal flair.

Finally, he sat up and bowed his skull towards the boy. “Forgive me. I am not in control.” With the words, he suddenly realized the tension in his bones and the tightness is his chest cavity; it all seemed to cave in suddenly and he shut his sockets, tensing against a sob that threatened to rack him. The pain crossed over to physical somewhere along the way, the confession burning with humiliation and a quiet, ever-present fear.

Not knowing what else to do, Boli slumped over into Gaster’s lap, running a hand lightly up and down his ribs in an attempt at reassurance. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ll take care of you,” he murmured.

Closing his sockets tightly, Gaster reached blindly down to stroke a hand over Boli’s skull. Though he tried to be quiet about it, he found himself holding his breath against the quaking of his chest until he could breathe normally again, no longer feeling the looming urge to weep pathetically in anyone’s sight. 

“Well!” he chirruped in a rather unnaturally cheerful tone now, his sockets opening again to look down at the boy strewn in his lap. “Have you gotten all of the answers you were seeking today, Boli?”

“Pretty much. Just one more.” The detached tone of the boy’s voice brought Gaster’s attention down to his expression, which was far away, though there was an unquestionable desolation there, dark and bitter. “Who’s Toriel?”

A small, quick breath sucked into Gaster’s windpipe at the name; years of memory flew by in an instant. Who was Toriel? A beacon of light and hope which shone ever beyond his reach - like the sun. Though it gave life, he knew he could never touch her. Yet there were years of blank space to remind him that there were reasons for his emotions he could never fully grasp. How could he justify saying what had come to mind?

“The queen. Sole heir to the throne, wife of Asgore Dreemurr, mother of our late Asriel-” he began to explain robotically.

“No. Who is she to  _ you? _ ”

Words turned to fire in his windpipe at the question and the scientist coughed softly, trying to disguise the heavier breaths that started up yet again as he did so. He knew he couldn’t answer. Instead, shaking his skull slowly, the scientist cleared his throat rather hard, reaching up to press his fingers into the crack beneath his eye. 

Though he was unable to look at Boli, he could still feel the experiment’s eyes boring into him, intent on devouring any emotion he allowed onto his face; he knew that, in that moment, he was failing miserably at appearing neutral. 

“Can you at least tell me this: Did you love her?”

Gaster could practically feel the lights in his eyes burn out and he gazed down at Boli with sockets empty aside from pain. The expression was an answer in itself; he knew there was nothing to say - no point in trying to lie.

Moving slowly, Boli sat up from where he rested in the scientist’s lap and instead clambered into it, wrapping his arms and legs tightly around him and clinging on. “I understand. I’m sorry. I just needed to know for s-sure. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

The rigidness practically fell out of Gaster and he slumped his weight into the embrace. Away from all eyes and the weight of the world he’d taken on for himself strapped across his back, it was easy to believe that Boli was right; that everything was okay. But he knew it would only be so long before something went wrong, or before he simply had no choice but to quit.

As if in response to the thought, movement caught Gaster’s attention and he jerked his head sharply in its direction, though trying his best not to give Boli any indication he’d seen something. Seated atop the railing separating the walkway from the straight drop into the Void sat the fallen child, gazing down into the abyss; they rocked their weight precariously.

Seeming to sense eyes on them, they turned back to Gaster. As he stared back at them, the beginnings of a demented smile curved their lips. When they spoke, it was in a voice projected into his head, their mouth never moving.

“Do not worry, Uncle Gaster,” they giggled, turning away to look down into the emptiness once more. “Not much longer now.”


	36. Integrity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update on Friday??? Could this be a sign?

As weeks passed, the very air of the Underlab, which had seen so much death, seemed somehow lighter as it bustled with the lives of monsters. The subjects came and went within the prisoner’s ward freely now. In moments of naivety when their chatter rang down the empty halls, Gaster quite nearly fooled himself into thinking they were happy. And though the Royal Scientist found himself as many things he had never been before in recent times, a fool was not one. 

These were lives he had destroyed and nothing more.

Shade had received the injection a handful of days after Angel’s first, and they’d done so with casual interest, and an inexplicable complete lack of reaction to the substance. Writing it off as a result of their relative lack of bodily structures, Gaster had thought little of it. If anyone was going to shrug off the side effects of DT, it would be Shade, anyhow.

Though things seemed to be proceeding well - ideally, even - he could find no relief nor ease on the matter. He had long since learned not to trust a situation that seemed to be unfolding perfectly for him. No, he was no fool.

Weeks passed into a month and through his troubled dreams, Gaster couldn’t help asking the inevitable question of how much longer this would go on. Would Boli be ready to continue what he started here when…? There was no way of knowing. He knew he couldn’t bring up the topic of his finite time with the boy; he didn’t know how to even begin approaching it.

“Hey, s-so, uh, are you gonna s-stare at those readings until night rolls in, or?”

Snapping out of his troubled thoughts, the scientist turned his attention to Boli, hesitantly. Though the young skeleton smiled patiently - sweetly, even - at him when their eyes met, it was impossible to miss how worn down he looked. How could he ever take on the full responsibility of being Royal Scientist if he was having difficulty simply keeping up with their current tasks?

“Apologies, I was lost in thought, as I so often am,” Gaster responded brusquely, now avoiding Boli’s stare in favor of looking back at the computer screen in front of him - though, he had been looking unseeing at the monitor for so long he had practically forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. Realizing he had been looking over the detailed readings of the rodent which had reacted to Determination all those months ago - for about the hundredth time - he sighed and shut the window. Useless.

Although he remembered the tide-turning moment vividly, it now felt bittersweet in the wake of what it would mean for the experiment’s subjects. It all seemed different now.

“Anything you w-wanna talk about?” Boli wondered, plodding over to where Gaster sat in front of the computer and flopping down in his lap. His jaw clenched against a yawn, and he looked sleepily at the now-empty monitor.

“Not this time.” Though he hadn’t intended for the words to sound so harsh, his flat tone was far from kind. The other skeleton seemed to pay it no mind, however, sinking his weight back against the scientist and closing his sockets. 

The room went quiet for long enough that Gaster began to wonder if the boy had literally fallen asleep sitting up in his lap, though he hadn’t begun snoring quite yet.

“Welp. If ya don’t need me for anything, I’m gonna go ahead to bed. I’m beat,” Boli mumbled at last, craning his skull back to look up at the scientist. “You might even say bone-tired.”

Chuckling softly, the scientist lifted Boli as he rose to his feet, carrying the drowsing boy from the office to the bedroom. Laying him down in the center of the bed, he stood back to watch as the boy stripped out of his labcoat, tossing it onto the floor and stretching luxuriously, a soft and deliberate moan escaping his mouth.

“Join me?” the boy mumbled after looking over to process the scientist’s smirk. “You’re all done your to-do list today, aren’t’cha?”

Biting down on a comment of something along the lines of, ‘well, there is still you,’ - knowing the boy wouldn’t appreciate the empty teasing - Gaster instead shrugged his shoulders, hanging his labcoat up in the closet before falling back onto the bed next to Boli. Almost before his spine could touch the bed, the boy squirmed in close, nuzzling his skull under Gaster’s chin. Instinctively, he returned the attention by pressing his mouth firmly against the boy’s skull.

Hearing Boli giggle delightedly at the attention and feeling him press contently against him, Gaster felt weight lift off his chest, even if only slightly. Closing his sockets, he tried his best to etch the boy’s laughter - the entire moment - into his mind. There was no way of knowing how precious few moments of peace such as these he had left to live.

 

* * *

 

 

The peaceful silence of Waterfall, broken by the murmurs of the echo flowers and the whispers of water flowing by, wrapped around a monster pair as they strolled along, neither speaking for some time, contently familiar without needing to exchange words.

“You walk all this way on your own to and from school every day, hm? Does it not get lonely?” Towering King Asgore rumbled down to his young companion at last as she bounded along to keep up with his long strides, dragging the tip of a wooden spear through dark water running alongside their path.

“Nah, not really. Mom always said she wants a school in Waterfall, but… I like going to school with the city kids! Some of them are pretty cool,” Undyne proclaimed in response, nodding her head firmly for effect.

Smiling slightly, Asgore fell silent once more as they strolled along a row of echo flowers, indistinctly speaking over one another. His peace was shattered a moment later, however, as a distant cry of, “mama! Papa!” sounded from ahead. Tensing immediately, Asgore sprang forward into the next cavern, leaving Undyne to scramble after him, almost crashing into his back as the king abruptly halted once more.

Aside from a lone echo flower crying out its saved message to the world, the only sign that any monster had passed by was a thin layer of soggy dust in the dark peat, scattered around the flower. Horror came across Asgore’s face and he knelt, brushing his paw through the wet powder.

“Who…?” he wondered aloud, his voice shaking with rage. “No… there is only one explanation. Undyne. Run home. Do not stop for anything and lock the door. Do you understand?”

Eye flaring with lively, youthful anger in imitation of the king, Undyne bared her teeth fiercely. “It’s a human, isn’t it? I’m going to help you beat them!”

Guilt flooded over the king at the words and he shook his head from side to side, dislodging the strands of blond hair tucked under his crown; as they fell across his face, he reached down to gently place his paw on Undyne’s shoulder. “You are far from ready, young one. You must go.”

“But I-!” the girl began to argue, but didn’t finish the sentence as Asgore swung around, glancing back towards the way they’d come.

“I am sorry. We do not have time to argue. If you will not go home, stay behind me. By all the magic in my soul, you will not meet the same fate as her.”

With these words, spoken almost numbly, Asgore strode back the way he’d come, slowly, his ears perking slightly to pick up the flower’s indistinct muttering that he had taken no notice of earlier.

“Strong… strong,” one muttered, frantically, repeating a circling mantra. “Weak… weak, they’re weak,” another hissed. 

Quickening his pace, Asgore hurried quicker down the dark path, his head swivelling as his eyes, burning with cold fire, searched the dim caverns. Though aware of Undyne’s movements as she ran along behind him, simply trying to keep up, he didn’t slow his pace for her. Any moment wasted could mean another monster’s life lost.

It seemed the very air around Asgore changed as he drew near to the lone stalactite area; a change in gravity itself, as if something was trying to crush the life from him. But he refused. Knowing he needed to look no further for the intruder, he glanced back towards Undyne briefly.

The monster child’s face looked slightly bluer in the cheeks, as if struggling simply to breathe. Cursing himself for not being more adamant in his attempts to send the girl home, he wordlessly prayed that his negligence would not harm her. It was difficult enough to look himself in the eye as it was.

A voice, young and soft, rang from somewhere overhead, and Asgore bristled, his head jerking back to seek out the source. “Asgore Dreemurr. 80ATK. 80DEF. The king of all monsters.”

“How do they know you?” Undyne whispered in a strangled voice from behind the king.

“Monster kid. 3ATK. 1DEF. Looks like free XP.”

Stiffening at the words, Asgore reacted on reflex, his paw lifting in a blur to cast a flame that floated slowly upwards, shedding light across their dark surroundings. Glowering coldly up at the human’s perch as he located them, he awaited their next move.

They stood, by unknown means, on the peak of the stalagmite, silhouetted in red from the distant warm glow of Hotland’s lava; frills of lace unfurled at their hips, a slender but strong body casting shadows across the corridor, dancing with the flames. Dust streaked across their tutu, a telltale sign of the death they had brushed off of their hands.

“Why did you kill those monsters?” Asgore wondered, though he knew he did not want an answer. He was only delaying the inevitable - there was only one thing for him to do, only one way for this to end.

“Because it was easy,” they mused. “Because it was fun. Because... I needed to.”

Trembling with barely-veiled rage, Asgore clung silently to restraint. “We have families, too. Do you think it will be “fun” when they discover what you have done?”

No verbal answer ever came; then, noiselessly, the young human stepped forward a pace and drifted weightlessly from the cavern ceiling, untouched by gravity, to touch down lightly before Asgore, first on the tips of their toes, then flat on their feet, staring up at him steadily. 

"I’m weak. But they were weaker.” 

Fur standing on end against the chilling, blank voice, Asgore drew a shaking breath. “Their lives - my  _ people’s  _ lives - are  _ not  _ worth less than yours. Humans-”

“You’re all stuck in a hole in the ground.” Their voice seemed no louder when they spoke over Asgore, dark eyes staring through him blankly. “You lost the war, and you’re going to die down here. You  _ lost -  _ you’re  _ weak.   _ You all  _ deserve  _ to die.”

A growl rumbled deep from Asgore’s throat and he took a step forward, staring down at the fallen human. “Before I… before I do what must be done, shall I tell you the tale of my people - the tale of those you so thoughtlessly murdered?”

“Should I tell you mine first?” the child wondered back, stepping forward noiselessly. “Would it change anything? I don’t think so. No matter what we say, one of us dies today.”

Asgore’s paws trembled at his sides, clenched into fists. The child’s indifference burned deep into his chest, tempering his resolve. It would all become easier after this anyways.

“There’s lots of humans on the surface. Almost six billion, you know. A thousand times more monsters than there ever were. Cutting your kind down made us  _ stronger. _ ”

Instinctively, Asgore reached his paw back to nudge Undyne behind him fully. 

“But he said I’ll never be strong enough. He  _ hates  _ me. But I’ll show him; when I get back home, my LV will be even higher than his, and he’ll  _ have  _ to love me. Or be _ afraid  _ of me. I  _ have  _ to do this. So what if I crush a few weak monsters? You’ll die before you see the light of day again anyways.”

“You’re WRONG!” Undyne burst out suddenly, springing out from behind Asgore and pointing her training spear at the fallen child. “Asgore will NEVER die! He’ll NEVER lose to a human, and he’ll NEVER give up!”

The human’s eyes flicked over to Undyne, lighting up deep blue for a fleeting moment before they looked back to the king, tipping their head ever so slightly, as if silently calculating. “Well. Killing you should build up enough XP. Then I’ll go home.” Resolute, they awaited Asgore’s reaction.

“...Why did the humans attack? It is a question I have asked myself a thousand times on a thousand sleepless nights. Though difficult, I have learned to live with the reality that we will never know. They needed not fear our magic; it is merely an expression of our will, after all. And we do not have the will to take the life of another living, breathing being. Yet you call that compassion  _ weak. _ ”

Asgore left only a brief pause in his speech before pressing on. “Truthfully, I did not think I would see war in my lifetime. Yet you - your parents, your  _ species  _ \- attacked with no warning. We could not estimate the lives lost; had we not fled, there would be no monsters remaining to tell this tale. Do humans your age know the truth? Will you be the only one to learn the full tale? Well - it will not matter for much longer.”

Breaking off now, the king examined the child’s face for any sign of his word’s impact, but their eyes remained glassy and distant, their stance grounded, solid. 

“Do you want to inherit his crimes? Or be free of his sins? Are you so desperate to prove your strength as a human that you would become worse than who you are trying to prove wrong?” 

Deep, near-blinding blue light consumed the corridor at these words as the human’s soul revealed itself, bleeding overwhelmed emotions across Asgore. Yet beneath the regret and pain he could sense, there was an absolute strength, unmoved; he knew it would never be swayed. Their beliefs would stand against any argument, even if they were wrong.

It had been a waste of breath from the beginning, Asgore realized. This was nothing more than blind, twisted integrity standing its ground on the borders of right and wrong, but they would not move. In spite of it all, he looked for more words, wondering for a fleeting moment if Toriel could have found the right thing to say to this child.

But there was nothing to say.

 


	37. the darkness keeps growing...

“Hey, Gaster. Wake up.”

Jerking out of his doze, the royal scientist rolled from his front onto his back to look over to where Boli stood at the door, newspaper in one hand and coffee in the other.

“I was not sleeping,” Gaster mumbled, rubbing his sockets. “Only dozing. Two entirely different things.”

Smirking, Boli crossed the room and held the mug in his hand out to the other skeleton. “Caffeinate. Then there’s something you’ll w-wanna see.”

With no small amount of reluctance, Gaster pushed himself into a sitting position and took the mug from Boli, taking a scalding sip. Heaving a long, satisfied sigh, he ventured a fond glance in the boy’s direction - a strong and bitter coffee, just as he preferred.

“You are like a hamster on a wheel, Boli. I do not know how you manage, particularly given your soul’s limitations.” Gaster’s comment came quietly after watching as the boy buzzed around the room for a moment, tidying up a mess of papers scattered carelessly across the bedside table, followed by a few stray articles of clothing thrown haphazardly onto the floor.

“I don’t know w-what a hamster is,” the experiment pointed out dryly, sitting at the foot of the bed once he seemed satisfied with his quick clean-up. However, it did not go unnoticed by Gaster that he continued to fidget with the newspaper in his hands, clearly restless.

“It is a small rodent that humans keep as a pet. Not unlike a rat, but… rounder, I suppose?” The scientist attempted vaguely, taking a deeper gulp of his coffee after giving it another few moments to cool.

“Gee. Thanks.”

“I meant well.”

Uncertain, Boli glanced fleetingly in Gaster’s direction, surprised to find a lopsided smirk, full of wry humor, affixed on his face. It was rare that he revealed any sense of humor at all, much less waking up with one. Finding himself much more relaxed by Gaster’s apparent good nature at the moment, Boli crawled across the bed to lean his back against the headboard, padding his spine with a pillow behind it.

After a moment, Gaster nestled slightly closer to the boy, though saying nothing else as he scrutinized the dark surface of his coffee, waiting.

“Alright, s-so, w-when I woke up, I took a quick trip to the resort, ‘cuz we were out of coffee. The whole place seemed kinda weird, s-so I grabbed a newspaper to figure out what’s going on. Here, look.” Finally unfolding the paper, Boli turned the front page article towards Gaster, involuntarily holding his breath.

“ **THIRD HUMAN CONQUERED!”** Proclaimed the headline in bold print; beneath, an image of the soul chambers, three full, four empty, took up most of the remaining room on the front page. Swiftly, Gaster snatched the paper away and flipped to the next page to skim the full article for details.

“So soon…?” Gaster mused, a frown settling onto his skull. “At this rate… hm…” he fell silent briefly, pounding back what was left of his coffee before setting the mug aside on the bedside table. “Do you know what the most interesting thing about this article is, Boli? Aside from, of course, the subject matter itself.”

“ _Uhh._ ” Leaning closer to look over the page of text again, Boli shrugged. “W-Well… it’s kinda s-strange this human got all the w-way to W-Waterfall, eh? The first two didn’t get past Snowdin town,” pausing, he gauged Gaster’s expression, which gave nothing away.

“Let’s s-see. It mentioned… monsters w-were killed? That’s… uh, is that interesting? But they didn’t s-say who died, s-so…”

“It is rather difficult to perform an autopsy on dust, much less identify who it once was,” the scientist pointed out with no shortage of harshness in his voice, but cleared his throat quickly and went on more gently. “All good guesses, my dear, but I am more interested in the implications behind this sentence - “King Asgore Dreemurr was unavailable for comment at the time of publishing.” A bit odd that he would have nothing to say after what should have been, for him, a celebratory victory, is it not?”

Alarmed, Boli sat up a bit straighter, staring wide-socketed at Gaster. “You don’t think s-something _happened_ to him, do you?”

Unease settled over the room, hitting Gaster as hard as a wave, but he remained stoic. Shifting his sockets over to the chair at his desk where, without warning, Chara perched, looking at him expectantly for an answer, he bit his tongue. Suddenly finding himself fishing very carefully for words, he pretended not to notice.

“Nothing physical, I am sure. However… Asgore is not a killer at soul - far from it. You would not understand, Boli, but to take a life for the first time - and I mean _purposely,_ in open combat, with no tricks or traps…” Gaster paused, drawing a shaking breath. “For a monster to do such a thing takes an incredible mental fortitude. I do not know where he went in his mind to accomplish this, but… I do not _want_ to know.”

_*You’re saying… dad killed someone? A human?_

Struggling to breathe against the weight on his sternum, Gaster’s skull drooped as he looked down into his lap. _This is not something you should have heard second-hand, Chara. I apologize. I would have told you straightforwardly, truly, but I-_

 _*You’re a liar. There’s no way he’d kill anyone. You’re the only monster_ evil _enough to do that._

Closing his sockets, Gaster mashed the heels of his hands into them, smearing dampness across his face. They were right - none of this should have happened. _I should have broken the Barrier by now. I should have never doomed us to this fate in the first place. I should have… I…_

“Gaster… uh, if you’re talking to me, I can’t really hear you,” Boli whispered nervously.

Realizing only then that he had been muttering fragments of his thoughts aloud, Gaster clamped his jaw shut tightly, cursing himself. _Lovely, now you look completely demented,_ he dug at himself, lowering his hands so that they now covered as much of his face as possible.

“Hey, uh.... I know this feels too close to home for you, and it’s probably s-scary, but… Asgore’s gonna be alright, and s-so are you,” Boli tried his best to speak confidently, and his voice grew a bit firmer as his attempt went on. “Either way, once all the initial excitement is over with, I’m going to go see him. He deserves to have someone to talk to about this. ...Is that okay?”

Letting his hands drop away from his face abruptly, Gaster folded up the newspaper he’d let drop into his lap. Noting instantly that Chara had gone, he couldn’t help a relieved sigh before looking back to Boli.

“You most certainly may, but I will not be accompanying you to stick a bandage on his broken conscience. There is no fixing what has been done, but if you think your company may take the edge off his guilt, I have faith your sentiment.”

Blinking, as if surprised by the answer, Boli nodded. “I will, then. I want to hear about the human, too,” what little confidence he had in his voice faded away as he tapped his index fingers together, uneasy. “Uh, w-when w-would be best to go, do you think?”

Shrugging, Gaster shifted himself to the edge of the bed, letting his legs dangle over. “Your judgement is as good as mine in this case, but it would likely be best to give him a couple days to make sense of it all. Also, I had plans to start the DT injections on Ilea in the coming week, and I will need your assistance with that.”

Beginning to stand up with the words, the scientist froze abruptly at the sensation of a faint popping somewhere within his skull, followed by a gush of warm liquid from his nostrils. Suddenly losing the ability to breathe in his shock, he lifted a hand to his face, pulling it back to inspect the leak.

Crimson red.

Soul and thoughts racing so fiercely that Gaster feared they might both fail, he pressed his palm against his nostrils and stood quickly, letting the sheets around him drop onto the floor as he dove for the nearest black article of clothing he could find, replacing it in front of his face. No matter how swiftly he reacted, though, even making sure the shirt now bunched in front of his face covered his red-dripping hand, he knew that Boli would, without question, notice.

In this case, Gaster had absolutely no idea what he would say; he found he had no answers even for himself.

Turning back to face the boy, Gaster measured the distance between himself and the bathroom. If he made a quick enough run for it, he could most likely close the door behind him before Boli managed to gain enough traction to move into his path, and the entire conversation could be avoided if he could just -

 _Not quick enough,_ he scolded himself, looking down and away as, within moments, Boli stood from the bed, stepping uncertainly towards Gaster, one of his hands raising slightly towards him. Unable to help thinking how convenient it would be to teleport away from the problem as Sans might in this moment, the scientist gave in and shrugged an arm, helpless.

“I… appear to be bleeding?” he offered, removing the shirt - Boli’s, he noticed, chagrined -  from his face just long enough for the boy to catch sight of the red rivulets running down his face.

“But s-s-sk-sk - I mean w-w-we-” the boy stuttered fiercely, looking as if he was facing a toss up between vomiting and passing out as he struggled to speak. “You can’t bleed!” he managed to spit out the words, clutching both hands around his sternum through his shirt.

“That would be why I said “appears,”” Gaster muttered darkly, closing his sockets for a moment in attempt to fight the feeling of lightheadedness coming over him. “Now, if you would be so kind as to excuse me, I need to get a sample of whatever is coming from my… face area.” Swaying slightly where he stood, the skeleton found that the most he could do was step close enough to the bed so that his impact was padded when the color rushed from his vision and his knees gave out.

“Or I could… lay here,” he mumbled from a mostly-closed mouth, trying his best not to taste whatever was leaking from his skull. It was reminiscent of the stench of rotting meat. Closing his sockets so that he didn’t have to watch the world spin around him, he waited silently for it to be over; it wasn’t too unlike many nights in his earlier years spent drinking himself to the point of blacking out. In fact, it felt almost familiar.

Realizing he could vaguely hear Boli’s voice through the high-pitched ringing in his ears, Gaster tried his best to focus on the voice, fumbling aimlessly towards where he thought the boy might be. However, he never managed to reach the boy before everything went dark.

 

* * *

 

 

“been awhile, huh?”

Skull jerking up to look around his surroundings, Gaster swivelled in his desk chair, looking around his office. Freezing abruptly, all the air in his windpipe seemed to freeze and collide at once.

“Sans?” he rasped, painfully, involuntarily reaching a hand towards the stout skeleton sitting on his computer desk, next to the photo frame of Portulaca holding an infant skeleton bundled up in orange. “No, this is a dream,” he muttered, glancing towards his face reflected in the powered-down monitor in front of him. Sure enough, the scar he so clearly remembered being opened up beneath his eye was nowhere to be seen.

“yeah... but what if it’s not?” the other skeleton mused, looking towards the ceiling. Gaster couldn’t help wondering why he looked older somehow, even in this dream of the past. Darkness sat beneath his sockets; the strained corners of his ever-present grin belied him. “what if you were actually back here? heck - what if it was yesterday? pretend you knew the kids’re dying on the other side of the barrier as we sit here talkin’. what would you do?”

Shaking his skull helplessly, Gaster buried his face in his palms. “It does not matter. I cannot undo what has been done - no one can. Period. I am not one for pointless speculation. I need to wake up… Boli must be so distraught-”

“boli, huh? that the kid you almost killed me to patch together? and for what?”

“Enough, now,” the royal scientist muttered, barely able to hear himself over the pain in his chest cavity, thinking: no blue would ever be bluer than the color of Sans’ sweater, of his glowing socket as he judged him silently from where he sat. And it wasn’t even real.

“yeah… ok. that’s not what I wanna ask you anyway.”

With these words, the shape of Sans sitting on his desk seemed to melt and contort into something else entirely; a hunched child, brown hair falling into their face, sat before him instead now, rocking back and forth with a violent, frantic energy.

“You know. I did meet you. One time. Not for real, though. It was late. Real late. Asriel was sleeping, but I… I had a nightmare, and I woke up, and I went to find mom,” Chara spoke in a quick, numb voice, their eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind Gaster. As their words tumbled out, the surroundings of the office liquidized and vanished to be replaced by the clusters of flowers that grew in the throne room, glowing golden in the light.

“But I heard a voice. Dad was talking to someone outside. I went to go see.”

Watching wordlessly as the scene set itself up to unfold, the scientist silently fished for a recollection of when he might have encountered the fallen child; but it all seemed too far away, too blurry. He could not seem to think.

As his perspective shifted, he found himself standing slightly behind Chara in the doorway; they were wearing nothing aside from a striped pajama shirt that hung past their knees, hair mussed from sleep, looking out on two monsters in the garden. Asgore was standing, stiff and bristling, and the other one… _Oh._

Watching the disheveled skeleton pace about the courtyard furiously, precariously balanced, Gaster couldn’t help but feel ashamed. If he were standing a little closer, he would be able to smell the whiskey on his own breath; his behaviour was a dead giveaway to an adult, but Chara had been too young to understand. Did they understand now, he wondered?

“Well, that would be why I do not remember this,” he remarked quietly, silencing himself a moment later as he heard his own voice speaking from across the courtyard.

“You sentimental fool!” he was shouting at Asgore, pointing up at his face in a threatening motion that was, in actuality, laughable. “Don’t you see? I only need one soul - _one soul!_ To cross! I could free us all and _wipe out_ the humans, and all I would need is them!”

“Do you think I did not think of that?” the king boomed, towering over Gaster, his blue eyes alight with an uncharacteristic menace. “Do you think I do not want to free my people? How many different ways must I say that it is out of the question, Wingdings Aster! It is monstrous to even have asked!”

“Why?” the drunken skeleton shouted back, drawing himself up, though he swayed. “Because you think they’re _yours?”_

“They are mine!” Asgore’s voice rattled the windows of the castle.

“No, the _kingdom_ is yours. They are a _human,_ the very same as those who put us here! Think of your people, not yourself!”

Gaster watched on silently as Chara’s hand tightened on the doorframe they stood in, their knuckles turning white. “I’d never seen a skeleton before,” they mused quietly, turning back to face Gaster now. “You were weird, and scary, and you were making Dad _really_ angry. That was all I knew then, but now… I understand. You wanted to kill me and take my soul, pass through the Barrier, and… reap another six. So that you could free everyone.”

Looking back towards the fevered argument between himself and the king, Gaster ran a hand along the crack over his socket. “Yes. I was not in my right mind,” he muttered, though knowing it was a pathetic excuse to make for himself; he would have asked the very same thing of Asgore, merely with much more tact, if sober.

Chara turned back to face the courtyard, not saying anything, and continued to watch the two monsters shouting at each other among the flowers. “I spent so long hating my life - my _humanity._ When you said you could… kill them all, I…” they turned their back to the doorframe, leaning on it and looking up to the cave ceiling. “I guess that’s where I got the idea. We just needed six. But he couldn’t do it.”

Gaster tipped his skull slightly, incomprehensive, watching Chara as they stared upwards. They looked deeply contemplative now, as if lost in thought; briefly, he considered that this might the best time to try to slip away, but found he had no interest in doing so. They had said something that piqued his interest, and he couldn’t push down the questions rising in his mind now.

“What are you talking about, Chara? What idea? What could _who_ not do?” he rattled off the inquiries quickly, fighting genuine concern as he knelt in front of the fallen child, trying to meet their eyes with his.

They didn’t respond, though, instead looking out towards the courtyard once more; it shimmered with the light of daytime in the Underground now, falsified by the CORE. For a moment all was still, then two children in matching striped shirts came bounding through the flowers, giggling with delight. Soul twisting at the sight of Asriel, who he had so rarely seen in life, the scientist averted his eyes. Somehow it felt wrong to see the lost prince, even in memory.

“Oh, I know - let’s play monsters and humans!” the boy was exclaiming as he pulled up a few flowers with his paws and sprinkled them over Chara’s head; a few of the petals stuck in their hair and they shook their head, sending them scattering towards the ground.

“You know I don’t like that game, Asriel,” they sighed, sitting down where they stood and scoring lines in the dirt beneath them with their index finger.

“But you could be the monster!” he tried again, persuasively, prancing in an excited circle around their human companion like… well, like a goat kid.

“If you were a human I’d kill you,” the words came sudden and sharp and Asriel froze immediately, his eyes becoming very wide with alarm.

Instinctively, Gaster found himself looking back at the present-time Chara standing next to him, also watching the interaction from afar. A bittersweet expression, mismatched with their face due to its maturity, crossed over them and they sighed, shaking their head.

“I should’ve known he couldn’t do it. He was soft, like mom and dad. Like every other monster. I can’t be mad. I wanted that compassion.”

Still trying to piece together the bits of information he’d been given, Gaster said nothing, waiting. It seemed that Chara had already decided what and what not to tell him, and he saw no point in trying to rush them. After all, in this dream, they had all the time in the world - and nowhere else to be, nothing else to be doing.

“We were going to save everyone. All I had to do was die.”

For only the briefest moment, the image of the courtyard around them flickered and Gaster found himself standing before the Barrier in the company of an overwhelming presence; a towering, horned creature, neither human nor monster, but something else entirely. It was gone in an instant, but Gaster couldn’t shake the chill in his spine or the shudder that shook him head to toe, even from the brief glimpse. In all his years he had never felt anything like it, and even as minutes passed, his unease remained palpable.

“Do you understand now, Uncle Gaster?” Chara wondered aloud, their eyes shifting to fix on him, scrutinizing his faraway gaze, the rapid rise and fall of his chest as the truth fell together.

So it had been no accident at all…? The very same thing that Asgore had refused to let him do, Chara had taken into their own hands. But instead of killing the humans as planned, they had been killed instead. Their last act, a final attempt to determine their own fate, and they had failed - because, with his soul tied to theirs, their desire to kill could not overpower Asriel.

A stab of sympathy caught Gaster off guard and he found himself stooping to a knee in front of Chara, reaching up to gently put a hand on their arm. “I am sorry, Chara. You did not have to die for such a thing. Monsters would have been happier to have you, you know.”

“I tried killing _him_ first,” they mumbled absently, pulling their arm away from the cold skeletal touch. “But it wasn’t enough. I knew it had to be more.”

Shrinking away slightly, Gaster searched Chara’s distant expression. Though he had never come to know this child himself, the depth of their malice still struck him as a surprise. “Do you not see? You were worth more to this world alive,” he rasped, “you were worth your weight exponentially in _hope._ Had I not been so foolish, had I seen more clearly, you never would have heard what I said that night… You may even still be alive now.”

Chara never answered, instead shaking their head, walking out into the middle of the empty courtyard and falling straight back into a pile of flowers, staring upwards. Their image flickered briefly, and for the briefest moment, Gaster swore that he could see pollen and blood crusted around their mouth, yellow flowers clenched between their fingers. But the colors vanished in an instant and, having no way to know whether or not he’d truly seen anything, swallowed his fear.

Losing track of the nonexistent flow of time, Gaster eventually found himself drifting across the courtyard to sit lightly in the throne, watching over the fallen child as they lay unmoving on the ground. “Chara, I… I would like to wake up now.” When he spoke at last, Chara merely twitched slightly, not looking over at him.

“That’s not up to me at this point.”

Unable to push down worry at the rather deliberate words, Gaster stood up and began to pace the courtyard, finding himself involuntarily avoiding stepping on the clusters of flowers. “What do you mean by that?”

They only shrugged their shoulders in response, sitting up abruptly. “I think I’m done talking to you, Uncle Gaster. ‘Bye-bye now.”

Before a protest could make its way fully out of Gaster’s mouth, his surroundings suddenly died away into complete darkness, leaving him in a familiar place. Sighing heavily, he picked a random direction and began walking - he wasn’t left with much other choice.

Boredom overtook him and numbed his mind before long and, as he walked, he stared straight down into the endless darkness, watching his feet fall upon nothingness. If he hadn’t seen it a hundred times before, it might have been somewhat entrancing. He was paying so little attention that when something suddenly collided with his forehead, it knocked him clear off his feet and he landed painfully on his tailbone with a loud grunt of air heaving out of him.

Rubbing his skull in confusion, Gaster looked around the darkness. “That has never happened before,” he mumbled, sitting up. As he tottered back to his feet, he caught a faint glimpse of light over his head and reached up, his fingertips brushing smooth plastic and he retrieved the object from its weightless floating, turning it in his hands.

His digital recorder.

Shaking, he turned a full circle where he stood, trying to discern any shapes that might be an intruder in the darkness. “Chara!” he called out, his voice equal parts cross and mortified. “This is not funny, Chara. If you have something you would like to tell me-”

“That is not for you just yet.” A faint, deep, gurgling voice reached out to Gaster’s ears and he found himself cowering, clutching tightly onto the recorder in his hands as an anchor in the nothingness. The voice… hauntingly familiar, yet he couldn’t put a name to it. “Give it to me.”

Frozen in fear, Gaster clutched the recorder tightly to his chest in reflex until the plastic creaked in his grip, threatening to give way. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

“You f̷͟҉o̷̶̷͡҉o͜͠l̡̛͞, you are going to b̕͢͟͜͞r̸̡e̸͟a̶̕͟͝k̡͢͏ it.I told you to l҉̛͞ȩ͟͠͞t̴̷̨͠ ͝͝͝͞ģ͝o̕͏̛.̶̢͡”

The voice was only recognizable here and there, distorting and dripping with rage as it went on; still, Gaster found he couldn’t move aside from to loosen his grip on the recorder slightly, looking down at the sickly green light that came from the screen, which now wore ugly cracks across it. Choking as he tried to suck breath into his windpipe, he finally managed to extend his arms away from his chest, letting the recorder float away.

Once it reached a certain distance, a black tendril, somehow darker still than the empty space around, it swiped out to grab the object out of the air, and it vanished. Still unable to stop shaking, Gaster instinctively stepped towards where the object had vanished, searching the darkness.

Before he could move any closer, though, he sensed something else coming towards his  face and ducked out of the way, squinting at the green light as it flew over his head. “Is that… a soul?” he wondered aloud, watching the blurry shape as it circled back around for another go at hitting him. Fear suddenly forgotten, he reached up to touch the light as it neared.

“N̵̹̲͈̖͕̂ͫ̈ͤ͗̊̊̕̕o̪̰͇͈̭͔̲̗ͨ̂͢ͅ!̈͆͐̋̎̈͏̝̞̤̬̞̺͇ͅ You are going to r̯̫̠̀͆u̷̸̢͚͉̭̅͆̑̽̑͋̿ͨĩ̸̘̭̦͎̖̞̚͡ñ͖̪̪̻̣̰ͤ͜͢ͅ everything. W̨̢͏̴̯̱̮̫͖̙̰̲͖̫̯̹̪̗̳̼a̕҉̶̘̲̥̗̼̖̪̞̗̘̣͖̪͈͍̞̝̹̜k̷̙̹̖͚͝e̵̱͕̦̪̼͜͠ ̢͈͔̪̥̟͚̯̯̭̤͚̲̩̘͘ư̶̪͚̳̥̭̜̤̜̰͝p̧͈̫̩̩̤͈̣̯̞͎̯͕̜̫͠ͅ!̨͙̹̹͇̬͠

  
  



	38. ♡ [Yes] / [No]

Blinking awake slowly in the darkness of his bedroom, Gaster bit back a groan at the pain resonating in his skull; the sound escaped him regardless, though, and he heard movement from somewhere beyond his line of vision. Not turning his head for fear of antagonising the pain, he shut his sockets at once, sighing quietly.  _ Here it comes,  _ he growled inwardly.  _ “Oh, Gaster, Determination is dangerous, this and that, I was S-SO worried! I hope you don’t mind if I go on about how W-WORRIED I was in my very grating, high-pitched voice!” _

“You take a second dose again?” Boli’s voice was raspy when he spoke, sounding as if he’d spent quite a long time either crying, yelling, or a combination of both. Shaking his skull side to side, Gaster opened one socket long enough to notice that the boy still hadn’t stepped closer to where he lay, propped up by pillows.

“You lying?” 

Stifling a groan of pain, Gaster at last sat up straight to look around the room, noticing that Boli was sitting at the desk, watching him from across the room in front of piles upon piles of rather disorganized papers, as well as a derelict, worn old machine that it took a moment for him to identify as a cassette player.

Shaking his skull again, Gaster let his head hang back to stare up at the ceiling. “You know, for some reason, I don’t believe you,” Boli sighed, facing the desk for long enough to grab a leaf of paper off of it before marching over to the bed, slapping the sheet in his hand down in Gaster’s lap. “W-why do you even bother lying s-s-straight to my face? I’m not stupid!”

Lifting the paper he’d been presented with towards the faint light in the room, Gaster squinted at the titers laid side-by-side on the page. Determination concentration readings, he realized; one column was labelled “Chara,” the other, “Gaster.” Sockets widening, the scientist glanced over to Boli. 

How could the DT concentration from him surpass what was obtained directly from Chara’s soul? It didn’t add up, even if he had pumped the substance into his soul until it fell apart, oozing red at the seams. He knew he would have to investigate further later, but for now, he had to figure out how he was going to brush off his creation so that he could move on from the unfortunate incident.

“But… I do not understand. I  _ didn’t- _ ” he tried again, fear prickling at his soul. At least, he didn’t  _ recall  _ taking a second dose, but there seemed to be nothing else that could begin explaining the data sitting in front of him. Unable to look at Boli, he rerouted his words. “I have no memory of doing such a thing,” he said instead, placing the paper back down. “If it would make any difference to you at all, you are free to take inventory of the injections I had prepared to see if anything is amiss.”

“It w-wouldn’t. I know your type, Gaster: you’re a meticulously organized addict. You’re good at covering your tracks, and I would look like an idiot trying to find more proof,” Boli spat in an acidic voice that surprised Gaster, but he simply remained silent, staring down into the paper in his lap. He’d been scolded this way plenty of times in recent memory, but he couldn’t recall it ever making him feel quite as ashamed as it did in that moment.

No-one had been quite so willing to throw the word “addict” in his face, to make him  _ look _ at it, associate it with himself. Giving up on trying to convince Boli he was telling the truth, he simply, calmly, set aside the report in his lap and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, standing slowly and making his way into the bathroom, gently shutting the door behind him.

Surprised and disquieted by the scientist’s sudden, almost submissive departure, Boli found himself flopping back in the bed where he’d rearranged Gaster so that he didn’t choke on his DT “bleed,” picking up the shirt that had been a victim and throwing it into the laundry hamper across the room. One of his favorites - go figure.

Trying his best to redirect his frustration away from such an insignificant cause, Boli glanced towards the bathroom door, counting the minutes which grew with his agitated restlessness; he hit a count of twenty before it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he was expected to go ahead and prepare Ilea’s Determination injection. Or perhaps it was the opposite and Gaster would find a reason to be upset with him over it.

What did it even matter anymore? The best thing to do was skip the tiptoeing and ask, anyways - Gaster would likely be angry either way if he acted on his own, he knew. Gritting his teeth, Boli pushed himself off the mattress and stalked over to the bathroom door, pushing it open a crack to call in.

“Gaster,” he said the name flatly through clenched teeth.

The clatter of something hitting the tub bottom and a stifled yelp were the only response at first, and Boli instinctively pushed forward into the bathroom to check that the scientist hadn’t fallen - it was the last thing that he needed right now. Instants later, Gaster poked his skull out of the small opening left at the opposite end of the shower from the door, dripping water across the floor.

“...Get out,” he muttered after a moment, withdrawing and sliding shut the door the rest of the way. 

Directionless once more, Boli meandered back the way he’d come, stopping with a hand on the doorframe as he realized he’d gotten no answer. Despite his resoluteness to get a response no more than ten seconds ago, he suddenly found himself churning with anxiety, debating whether or not to bother the other skeleton further. 

“I can  _ hear  _ you worrying,” Gaster’s voice, sarcastic and impatient, piped up before the boy could make his decision, and though he felt his face flush with embarrassment, it also lit a fire under his soul and he stifled a growl. “You ought to find a productive outlet for your anxiety, Boli - or, at least something that results in you not tugging at my sleeve constantly.”

“I just wanted to know if I could go ahead to the Underlab and get started without you biting my head off!” Boli snapped, turning to face where Gaster stood behind frosted glass. “You wouldn’t even let me ask!” 

Half-surprised by the anger in his own voice, he considered diving out of the room to escape the conversation, but an unfamiliar stubbornness kept him rooted in place, even as he heard the water shut off and realized a confrontation was on its way.

Moments later, the shower door slid open enough for a magical hand to float out, retrieving a towel hanging on the rack; instinctively, Boli stepped a pace backwards to the door as Gaster emerged wreathed in steam from the hot water, towel held around his pelvic bone with one hand, the other pressing into the crack beneath his eye.

Bracing himself as Gaster stepped towards him, Boli mentally calculated how long it had been since he’d last been “punished” for his “insolence” or whatever words the scientist would use in attempt to justify himself. Thirteen days - and to think, things had been so peaceful before the other skeleton had awoken from his unexpected spell of unconsciousness. 

Saying nothing in his defense, the boy found himself thinking ahead to what Asgore might have to say about a bruised socket or a punctured cheekbone. Postponing his visit wasn’t too terribly inconvenient, he supposed - or, he could always heal the wound-

“What is going through that skull of yours, Boli?” Gaster wondered aloud, frowning down at the bleak expression on the other skeleton’s face. 

Choking on the truth, knowing full well he couldn’t form the words, Boli shrugged his shoulders and shot a crooked smirk full of bitterness back up. “Maybe I should take up knitting,” he said. Very dryly.

Laughing softly, Gaster reached down to cup his hand under the boy’s mandible, though the firmness of his grip sent a certain thrill through Boli - this certainly wasn’t intended to be a comforting gesture, he realized quickly. Lifting his chin higher, Boli laid his spine bare for the hand, waiting.

Studying the boy’s blown, bright pupils for a moment before seeming to comprehend the emotions on his face, Gaster shook his skull and instead gave Boli’s shoulder a quick, dismissive pat and walked past him, vanishing back into the bedroom without saying another word. Pacing the bathroom rather than following after immediately, Boli gave the scientist time to get dressed before trailing after him. By the time he emerged into the bedroom, it was already empty.

_ Must’ve gone ahead to the kitchen,  _ he sighed silently, shuffling to his next destination, pulling at his sleeves anxiously.

By the time he caught up, the only acknowledgement of his presence Gaster gave was to thrust a mug of coffee in his direction, barely giving the boy a chance to take it before he guzzled his own mug down with seemingly unnatural speed. Not fast enough, though, for Boli to miss the stench of alcohol wafting off the mug. Reflexively glancing to the wall clock, the boy forced a poisonous sneer off his face. 

“Ten in the morning. Incredible,” he muttered darkly just before taking a sip from his mug, half-hoping the words were lost behind the ceramic.

“Time is a manmade construct,” Gaster quipped, already sounding better-natured, “alcohol is not.”

“I’ll make sure that’s the opening sentence of your biography,” the boy remarked, turning on his heel and leaving the kitchen without another word. He didn’t stop to see if Gaster was behind him until he reached the elevator to the Underlab; once there, though, the scientist pushed past him to open up the panel before Boli could even look back. 

Stepping into the elevator, he waited until the door had closed so Gaster couldn’t simply walk away from the conversation before launching his assault. “I know the chances of you getting to talk about what happened to you earlier are infinitesimal, but-” the experiment began rather pragmatically - at least, he thought - but surrendered easily when Gaster interrupted.

“Infinitesimal!” he exclaimed. “Such a lovely word - meaning “so immeasurably small, it is considered nothing.” A very concise choice.” Sipping from his mug, Gaster glanced down at Boli, almost as if goading. “It was  _ boneheaded  _ to waste your breath.”

“Huh. If a tree cares about another tree in the forest but it falls anyway, does it make a sound?” Boli mused casually, crossing his arms in front of his ribcage.

“Ooh, now we’re doing  metaphors.  _Branching out,_ are we?”

Feeling ruffled at the frankly delinquent opposition he was meeting, Boli decided it would be better to stay silent for the foreseeable future. Trying to launch further attempts of communication would only land him in deeper pits of frustration, particularly seeing as Gaster had seemingly misplaced his ability to communicate like an adult. Again.

As the two skeletons endured the rest of the elevator ride in silence, Gaster fished a plain silver flask from his labcoat, upturning it over his coffee to top up the mug with reeking amber liquid. Then, tipping the flask back and forth in his hand to feel the shifting of what was left within, he shrugged and unceremoniously swallowed down the leftover gulp, chasing it down with a sip of coffee.

Despite fighting hard to ignore it and keep his mouth shut, Boli still found himself cracking, a low growl rumbling in his windpipe. “What is  _ wrong  _ with you?” he burst out thoughtlessly, rearranging himself to block the elevator door as it arrived at the sublevel. 

This time, he decided, he wouldn’t step aside unless he was given no choice. Now wasn’t the time to fear for himself; in that moment, he knew he had to think of what might befall the subjects if Boli allowed Gaster to continue.

“I’m in pain,” Gaster hissed through clenched teeth, his evasive humor vanishing in an instant, his hands shaking as they tightened into a death grip around his mug. “You saw what happened earlier. I am entitled to-”

“You’re entitled to NOTHING, okay? Nothing. So you got hurt. It’s not an equal trade - you don’t _GET_ to turn into a reckless idiot and hurt everyone else because you’re scared. You should go back upstairs, rest, get better, and _quit the damn Determination._ But you don’t _get_ to mess with living, feeling monsters and _our results_ because you’re “in pain.” Grow up.”

Jaw hanging open, Gaster scrambled for words to shift the blame, but he found himself too sluggish and foggy to get ahead of Boli.

“Don’t lie. Don’t try to make  _ me  _ feel bad. Just slow down, admit you’re wrong, and we’ll go from there.”

Staring his creation down, Gaster clenched his jaw tight, fighting the rage that coiled in his chest cavity. Perhaps the most infuriating part, he realized, was the reality that he couldn’t bring himself to argue with the fool given the way he had phrased his words. Even for all Boli’s naivety and how little he knew in comparison to himself, Gaster had to admit defeat on one front: he couldn’t jeopardize the entire experiment with the ugly cocktail of emotions in his soul. Pride fighting with the knowledge that he had to step down, the royal scientist took a stride towards Boli.

“And if I do not?” the scientist wondered quietly. “Will you call up your blaster and dust me before you allow me to proceed? Is your desire to protect  _ them  _ so powerful that you would kill for them?”

Freezing for a moment, a brief, fond memory of the way Shade had tried to comfort him when he’d been locked in with them, and their defense of him against Ilea came to mind. Boli knew he faltered, and could only hope it went unnoticed. Quickly, he shook his skull.

“Nah. Not for your  _ victims _ . For our progress,” he managed to remain stony as he growled, puffing out his chest. “You wanna take your temper out on something? I’m right here. Go ahead, I can take it. But I’m not gonna step aside and let you break everything we’ve built. I will not.”

Looking past Boli through the open elevator door, Gaster found himself cupping his chin in thought, rapt. “You surprise me, Boli,” he mused, stepping closer to the small skeleton and bending his spine slightly rather than towering deliberately as he normally would. “Your will is growing stronger constantly. I admire that very much.”

“But?” Boli prompted, expectant - mistrustful.

“But nothing. You are growing into a monster who will command power and demand respect.” With these words, Gaster slipped around Boli as the boy lapsed, seeming to sense that the confrontation had passed. When he reached the security monitors, he set down his mug and leaned both hands on the control panel.

“You ought to take a moment to feel proud before I go on,” he instructed, not glancing back to look at Boli - he could see on the monitor in front of him that the other skeleton was had stepped out of the elevator and was facing him, waiting, steady as ever. Time for a little test.

“I think that you are ready to take on your own experiments. Boli… I pass responsibility of Ilea’s injections and documentation onto you.” It wasn’t a request - they both knew.

The shock Boli felt never showed on his face, nor in his steady voice when he spoke only a few moments later, knowing: hesitation would only be viewed as a failure. “And if I refuse?”

“Then… fine. I will do it myself. It makes no difference to me. However, I thought that you might  _ prefer  _ to do it; that you would be pleased that I consider you ready.”

Springing back to hostility in an instant, Boli shook his skull crossly. “You’re just too afraid to hurt her. Angel and Shade are one thing, but Ilea… You couldn’t bring yourself to do these injections on her for weeks. Now you’re trying to foist it on me instead.” Boli spoke harshly, stepping towards where Gaster stood, his back still turned. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll s-say it again, I’m  _ not  _ stupid. I know what you’re really trying to do.”

A faint smile appeared on Gaster’s face, and although he kept his eyes fixed on the monitor, his sockets softened with fondness, pupils brightening. “Aren’t you clever. Well, congratulations, you have successfully concluded information that I would have told you if you had  just asked. Can we move on from my questionable motives, now, and skip to the part where you tell me whether or not you are prepared to do this?”

All Boli’s barbs and anger faded away now as he realized it was time to make his decision. There was no question in his mind that, in addition to what he had already worked out, there was more in play than he could see. But what? The longer he waited in inaction for the answers to dawn on him, the more what little power he had in this situation slipped out of his grasp.

How could he, for once in his short existence, come out on top? All he could do, he realized, was take control of his own path.

“Okay!” Boli blurted, nodding his skull until it rattled. Only then did Gaster turn around, a warm smile set on his face. Involuntarily, the boy tensed a little as the scientist stepped towards him. But the other skeleton merely stooped, planting a swift kiss atop Boli’s skull and stepping back just as quickly.

“Thank-you, M.V Boli. I do not know what I would have done without your bravery on this matter. I am very grateful - and proud, as well. You should know that.”

In spite of everything, in spite of all the cards he knew were stacked against him, Boli still melted at the gesture and the words. In that moment he could not think of any of the consequences nor dangers; all he could focus on was the feeling of Gaster’s cold hand in his as the scientist made contact and, with only a brief pause to lean down and brush his teeth across the back of Boli’s hand, pulled him off down the hall.

As he followed along the path he’d chosen, Boli soon remembered himself, and recalled: this was not something to celebrate. This was something he  _ had  _ to do.

 


	39. Exposure Therapy

“There is no rush, Boli, take your time,” Gaster reassured as they arrived in the room both skeletons had simply come to call “Chara’s room.” When they stepped in, Gaster promptly released Boli’s hand from his grip, waiting expectantly for the boy’s next move.

Though he had already worked out a slew of Gaster’s personal reasons for entrusting to - or, more accurately, pushing this task on - him, Boli had yet to hit the mark on the purpose of this task related to himself. With the boy’s mental maturity seeming to grow in leaps and bounds, Gaster realized, it was time to test his independence.

Just as medications and DT itself had to be evaluated and adjusted when the time came, Gaster knew that he would need to alter how he handled the boy as he, beyond the reach of his manipulations, outgrew his tactics and fostered his own confidence. If he couldn’t remain in control…

Well - one thing was certain: on his steadfast and fearless days, the threat of physical punishment no longer swayed Boli. Gaster had to give credit where it was due - Shade had been a paragon of foresight. They had known the day would come, and Gaster had planted seeds accordingly. Now it was time to see if the foliage he’d grown had twined tight enough. 

Though only mildly, Gaster was nonetheless surprised as the small skeleton first crossed the room, checking the vitals on the soul shard. Though it had been away from the rest of itself for so long, the little piece worked tirelessly on, showing no signs of slowing its DT production. Even now, it quietly pulsated away, distilling the pale off-red fluid.

“Alright. You haven’t prepared a dose for Ilea ahead of time, right?” Boli mused once he was done checking over the chamber in front of him. Moving on without waiting for an answer, he opened up the fridge where the DT was stored to preserve its effectiveness, glancing over the measured vials; Gaster’s, Angel’s, Shade’s. None labelled S-5. “Have you calculated her dosage?” he added a moment later, turning to inspect the scientist still standing in the doorway.

“That is up to you now,” Gaster evaded, leaning in the doorframe and looking past Boli.

“So you’ve done nothing then.” Agitation, impossible to be missed, tightened Boli’s voice and he glowered over at Gaster. “You were planning on rushing all this in one day? While drunk, I might add. God, Gaster, if this is going to be  _ that  _ difficult for you, Ilea shouldn’t even  _ be  _ here. You should let her go.”

Blinking, surprised, Gaster quickly felt guilt fall over him. Fighting it, he sneered across the room at the other skeleton. “Do you think that would go over well? Perhaps a month ago, it may have. But now, she has bonded with the other subjects. She would know they are suffering while she roams free, and she is far too compassionate to let these experiments stand. She would go to Asgore in an instant, and the entire experiment would be shut down.

“...Not to mention, I would lose my job, and he would likely have me executed.” Stopping now, Gaster brought a hand up to his windpipe, wrapping his hand around it lightly. Oddly enough, it seemed a familiar fear. 

Grimacing, Boli looked down at the floor. “He w-wouldn’t do that,” sighed the boy, rattling his skull back and forth briefly. “He’s still your friend, deep down, you know.”

Unbidden, the first thing that came to Gaster’s mind was the new recollection of the night he’d visited Asgore regarding Chara. He couldn’t recall ever hearing the gentle king raise his voice the way he had during that argument. It suddenly made much more sense that the king had scarcely spoken to him for several years after that incident; until his dream - hallucination? - he hadn’t known quite what to attribute Asgore’s distance to.

“I am not so confident he would spare me,” was all Gaster said in the end, smiling with a deep weariness. If Boli knew what Gaster had said that night, he would surely agree.

“There’s always memory removal.” Continuing his attempts at persuasion, Boli stepped towards Gaster, his eyes quietly beseeching.

“No.” Turning to look into the hallway, Gaster clenched his jaw shut. “There is not enough memory to pull out. Furthermore, I have never attempted to carry out two memory extractions on the same monster. She is not who I want to risk permanent side-effects on.”

“But you’re fine with torturing her?” Boli hissed, his mouth widening into a toothy snarl.

“I am fine with  _ you _ torturing her,” Gaster corrected seamlessly, his sockets narrowing as he turned on his creation once more, stepping into the room a pace. “Of course, it is not too late for you to change your mind. I can still do this. I am capable of being  _ much  _ worse.”

Soul suddenly aching, Boli wrung his hands together. He knew Gaster was twisted in ways that could never be straightened, yet still he feared for whatever morality might still be intact in his skull. If pushed, Boli knew that the scientist would do whatever he deemed necessary to obtain results - from any of them. But what would he have to mangle within his own soul to harm Ilea, who clearly, he cared for in a way that was unique to only her? 

Pivoting to turn away from Gaster, Boli walked over to the terminal that sat in the corner of the room, bringing up Ilea’s information and glancing through it. Between her size and weight, her dosage would need to be somewhere between Angel’s and Gaster’s - going for a low estimate just to be safe, he moved on to measuring out the DT into vials, not glancing towards the scientist as he did so. He found he couldn’t.

Boli found himself so focused on his task that when Gaster spoke minutes later, he jumped, nearly spilling the vial in his hands onto the tile. “Here, you will be needing this.” 

Composing himself, Boli turned to face the other skeleton, glancing over the small electronic chip resting in his palm. Recognizing it quickly as a soul monitor, Boli reached forward to gingerly take the small chip, inspecting it closely. 

“You haven’t even put a monitor on her?” Boli wondered, though it was a rhetorical question; he was tired of the subject by now.

Looking away, Gaster shrugged his shoulders, offering no resistance against the chiding that would undoubtedly come next. It wasn’t even past noon but somehow he already felt it had been a very, very long day. Realizing that Boli seemed to have nothing to say, however, he examined the boy’s expression, puzzled. The look there…?

It occurred to him swiftly: disappointment. Disregard, even. He’d given up. Reflexively, Gaster clasped his fingers through the hole in his palm and turned away from Boli, hoping that he hadn’t seen the expression of pain that appeared with the realization. 

“Are you coming?” Boli spoke up after a few moments and Gaster glanced towards the door where he now stood, waiting. “Or were you planning on w-watching me from the next room?” he added, and though his words were unassuming enough, it was still all too easy to hear the implied insult of “coward” beneath them. 

In this case, he knew that he deserved it - especially because Boli already had it all figured out. Before he could form an answer, though, Gaster found his skull cocking to one side in a fashion rather akin to a dog that had heard a distant noise as, suddenly, became aware of a faint, high-pitched drone. 

As Boli sighed and began to repeat his question, assuming that it had gone unheard, the scientist’s skull tipped in the opposite direction now, stepping towards the door. “Uh.” Though asking questions when Gaster was acting particularly strange normally proved fruitless, Boli found this behavior far too intriguing to push down his curiosity. “You okay there, G’?”

“Do you hear that?” he wondered in response, quietly. “Sh, listen carefully. It sounds like an-” before the scientist could quite finish his sentence, the room around them abruptly went pitch-black, the faint whir of machinery and the ventilation shafts dying alongside it, leaving them in painful silence for a split second before he finished with, “electro-magic surge,” and heaved a weary sigh.

“Fantastic. Exactly what I wanted to deal with today,” Gaster growled under his breath, grunting a moment later as he felt Boli crash into him, clinging onto his arm with a vice-like grip.

“Oh god, w-w-what are w-we gonna do? It’s s-so dark…W-w-we’re gonna die!” the boy mewled pathetically, practically seeming as if he was trying to climb into Gaster’s ribcage for how forcefully he seemed to be pressing against the scientist.

A few moments of silence later, a sickly, dim blue light replaced the usual glow of the Underlab’s lights, not quite filling the room to its corners. Pulling away from Boli swiftly, the scientist strode across the room to glance over the contraption holding Chara’s soul piece, ensuring that the brief halt in its functionality hadn’t been enough to harm the shard.

“That would be the backup generator,” Gaster muttered as he noticed Boli staring cautiously up at the overhead lights in his peripheral vision. “It will hold awhile, but in the meantime, I must go diagnose the issue with the CORE and start on repairs. While I am taking care of that, you had best go check on the subjects. I imagine some of the locks were knocked out.”

“W-wait, no, not happening,” Boli blurted, his voice full of desperation, magic crackling around in his skull as he stepped towards Gaster. “You’re not leaving me down here w-with no power. W-what if it goes dark again, and you’re not here, or the ventilation stops w-working, I’ll- I’ll s-s-suffocate!  _ Please,  _ Gaster, you know I’m terrified of… of…”

Glancing towards Boli, noting the way his teeth chattered together with frantic energy, sockets wide and pupils blown, Gaster couldn’t ignore a quick stab of pity. It was a surprise the boy was holding himself together well enough to not be bawling like an infant by now. Clearly, he’d managed to make some progress against his fears - perhaps this would do him some good.

“You seem to have misunderstood. I am  _ ordering  _ you to stay here and take care of things.” Glowering coldly at Boli as tears began to well up in his sockets in the form of bright green pinpricks of light, Gaster straightened up, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do I take that to mean that you are ignoring a direct order from me, M.V Boli?”

“Gaster…  _ please, _ ” the boy insisted, staring pleadingly up at him, shoving the heel of his hand against one of his sockets to cover a streak of tears that escaped.

“Or shall I take it to mean that you are able to go to the CORE, discern what is wrong with it, and conduct repairs in a timely manner? Because if that is what you are saying, I would gladly stay here in your stead. However, I do not think that is the case.”

Frustration battled with Boli’s fear now, though it only made the tears in his sockets accumulate and escape more swiftly. He knew he couldn’t win at this point, and it burned into him, setting his soul boiling with rage. At that moment, he wished that he could gather his words as quickly as he had earlier and hurl them in an attack, but all he could think to do was cry and plead. But that would accomplish nothing. There was nothing he could do.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Gaster added as he headed off into the hall, speaking over his shoulder as he went. “The elevator is  _ quite  _ strenuous on the backup generator. I do not think it could manage two trips. Just so that we understand one another.”

It was no lie - the generator for the Underlab prioritized all systems over the lift, and it would be the first thing to shut down in case of a shortage. That said, it wasn’t merely a helpful statement of the truth, either - both skeletons knew that.

Not waiting any longer to see how Boli digested the information, Gaster strode off, leaving the boy standing alone, stunned, in Chara’s room. Fighting against the urge to simply curl up in the corner of the room and collapse into tears the moment Gaster was out of hearing range, he instead left the room behind, heading to the subject’s wing as quickly as his shaking legs were willing to carry him.

When he reached the door and, with unsteady hands, managed to type the code and push his way in, he was surprised by a loud  _ clank  _ of metal as the door met the resistance of a body beyond it. 

“Ow!” He recognized the exclamation of pain as Angel’s immediately and found himself shrinking back, letting the door swing open fully. Inexplicably rather frozen by the mere presence of the monster, he scarcely heard her as she fiercely shouted down to him, “what is going ON?”

Unable to budge from the doorway - barely even processing that Ilea and Shade were standing just behind her - Boli only stared with his jaw hanging open. “Um,” he tried at last, struggling to pull his attention away from the strange tendril that dangled down from the fish monster’s head, giving off an iridescent blue light and twitching to and fro. Seeing her from afar on a monitor couldn’t have prepared him for encountering her in person, he realized. 

“The CORE had an issue. Gaster’s fixing it,” he finished distractedly, managing to make anxious eye contact with Angel at last, though only for a fleeting moment before he quickly looked away once more.

“So he’s not here?” Angel wondered aloud, suddenly rather calm. Looking back up, unable to miss the way her eyes focused on the hallway behind him now, Boli swiftly stepped fully into the hall and yanked the door shut behind him. 

Too uneasy to see if Angel was now glaring at him, he instead found himself slinking closer to Shade, trying to draw some semblance of comfort from their presence; in spite of all of Gaster’s warnings, they still seemed the best option to seek reassurance from at this particular moment. 

Surprised to feel Shade pressing back lightly in return, Bol involuntarily breathed a sigh of relief, letting himself lean heavier on the ghost. He hadn’t noticed before, but they seemed to have a faint industrial smell of oil and charcoal about them; it was comforting, despite being unlike anything Boli spent time around.

Failing to notice Angel and Ilea’s exchange of gawking stares, Boli instead gave time for his breaths to slow, closing his sockets and letting the details of his predicament fade and lose their weight. This wasn’t so bad - right? At least it was an opportunity to talk to Shade again. Perhaps he could even get some work done in the meantime.

Glancing up at Ilea -  _ God, she’s tall, how did I not notice that before? She has to be nearly Gaster’s height  _ \- he wondered how to approach the topic. Would she be angry with him? ...Would Shade? 

“The power should be back on s-soon enough,” Boli mumbled, mentally bracing himself for backlash before adding, “but in the meantime, Ilea… Um…” he glanced towards Angel, who had been ineffectually rattling the sealed door up until this point but now turned around, her crimson eyes glaring in the dimness. 

“The thing is, uh…” Wringing his hands, Boli hesitantly reached into his labcoat, removing the tiny soul monitor to present it to Ilea with shaking hands. She seemed to recognize it immediately, glancing towards Angel’s soul before bringing a paw up to her own chest.

“...Oh, goodness,” she murmured softly, and Boli found himself immediately pulling his hand back to his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed Angel stepping towards him and stumbled sideways away from her, nearly losing his footing in the process. 

“No, Angel, it’s okay!” Ilea exclaimed suddenly, gently, with a hint of laughter in her voice. Before Boli’s shocked eyes, the goat monster stepped towards Angel, her paws reaching up to stroke along the finned forearms of her companion, planting a swift kiss on her forehead. Then, she turned to Boli, pausing a moment before kneeling to half her height before him, smiling sadly.

“I am ready, Boli.”


	40. harold they're lesbians

Though it’d taken some time for the subjects to settle on where would be best to undertake what would be an exceedingly simple procedure - much to Boli’s disguised impatience - they had at last settled on gathering in Angel’s room. Huddled under the dim glow of the single light, Boli found himself wondering why in the Underground he’d thought it would be easier to do this with two extra monsters breathing down his neck, with a lack of light. 

Gaster’s presence would’ve been worse, though, he pointed out to himself as he shot a subtle, though pleading look towards Shade. If they were really so clever, they had to be making the boy uncomfortable on purpose. Seeming to catch on from the look they were shot, though, they gave Angel a nudge with a dark appendage that vanished as quickly as it had risen from their side.

“I don’t think this’ll go better based off how close you are, bud,” they remarked, not sparing Angel their acidity when they spoke. Though reluctantly, the fish monster backed off now to sit on the edge of the bed, though Boli could still feel her eyes burning into him, waiting for him to make one wrong move. 

_ And what if I do?  _ He wondered, feeling his jaw set into a grimace as he leered sidelong at her.  _ You got no idea what Gaster’s made me into. Try me.  _

Nausea swept over him at the thought and the unspoken threat that lit up his socket as their eyes met.  _ You’re supposed to be their friend,  _ he scolded himself silently, reigning his attention in to look at Ilea once more - she was the one he was supposed to be focusing on, after all. Her eyes, looking nearly black in the dimness, searched him wordlessly, worriedly. 

“Everything okay, kid?” Shade wondered casually after a moment of rather tense silence, rearranging themselves in the room enough to catch Boli’s eye. 

“Oh, he’s fine, he’s just scared of me.” Angel’s words, cutting and goading, struck Boli. 

Biting his tongue and ignoring the statement, Boli lifted a skeletal hand towards Ilea’s chest to pull out her soul; all it would take was a bit of magic, and…? Fear began to thump in his chest cavity as it occurred to him that he was accomplishing nothing. He had experienced his magic lacking strength plenty of times in the past, but… absolutely  _ no  _ reaction?

“Oh! Gosh, I can be dumb sometimes. We can’t use magic in Angel’s room,” Ilea giggled suddenly, not seeming to notice the look of horror that had crept across Boli’s skull. “Here, I’ll do it for you,” she added a moment later, her eyes twinkling playfully. Holding the boy’s gaze steadily, she held her paws, palms up, flat before her chest; illuminating the room brighter than the feeble overhead light could manage, Ilea’s soul materialized slowly. It shed such pure white light over the darkness that it was instantly obvious.

“You’re… a Boss Monster?” Boli gaped, open-mouthed, staring at the soul before him, trying his best to simply stay afloat against the power that seemed to flood the room suddenly, filling it to the corners. 

“Is that a problem?” Ilea wondered, seemingly missing the wonder in the question.

“I… had no idea,” he managed, his hands shaking as he reached up, though stopping before he could make contact. 

“Well, it can be a bit hard to tell when it comes to monsters that aren’t mostly transparent!” Ilea joked warmly, lowering her paws - and her soul with it - towards Boli slightly. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you know exactly what you’re doing regardless. Right?”

Though she could be a bit daft at times, Boli realized, this monster - this  _ Boss Monster,  _ apparently - seemed to only mean well. The presence that filled the room wall-to-wall was immeasurably different from what he felt from Gaster’s soul; his was all grey static with bursts of darkness that threatened to bury Boli over his skull without any warning. This aura was gentle, almost beckoning for him to curl closer and forget everything that weighed on him.

Shaking his skull firmly, Boli reached a hand forward to grasp Ilea’s soul, trying to keep the contact as brief as possible, blushing fiercely as he fumbled with the chip in his hand.  _ Gah, why do they make these things so damn small, I can’t even tell where the hooks are,  _ he seethed inwardly, feeling the humiliation burn into him as three sets of eyes rested on him.

“Boli,” Shade sighed suddenly, floating up from where they sat and rearranging themselves in his line of vision, a rather arm-like structure suddenly forming so that they could lean an ‘elbow’ on the soul chamber that sat next to them, giving them a coolly casual appearance. “You’re not doing anything inappropriate. Just ‘cuz Gaster’s got an issue with treating Souls like they’re taboo doesn’t make it true. Especially not a Dreemurr’s - most of their erogenous zones aren’t located anywhere near it, in fact.”

“Oh - hah!” Ilea burst out into a fit of giggling suddenly, a faint lilac glow rising beneath the thick fur on her face. “Shade’s right, I don’t feel anything. Take your time with the chip, sweetheart, you’re not bothering me in the slightest.”

Though the information didn’t make it much easier to relax, Boli wanted the entire situation to be over; with this in mind, he drew a deep breath and, studying the chip briefly in the light of Ilea’s soul, lined his hand up. With a concise curved shove, he finally managed to attach the chip to Ilea’s soul. The moment the indicator light switched on, the boy reeled away, shoving his hands into the pockets of his labcoat.

“Man, he’s left some scars on you,” Shade mumbled, quietly, but the words sounded deafening in the silent room. Staring down at the floor, shuffling his feet anxiously, Boli waited in uncertain silence for the subject to pass. It took far too long.

“So, how long’s he gonna be gone?” Angel was the first to speak up, rather poorly attempting to sound nonchalant. 

“More importantly, does Gaster know what you’re doing down here?” Shade interrupted, rolling their eyes, though making sure their back was turned to Angel before doing so. 

“Uh, yeah. He s-sent me, actually,” Boli explained, the lights in his sockets remaining downcast. “He’s gonna be taking care of you and Angel like alw-ways, and I’m s-supposed to do Ilea’s injections. But… w-well, I gotta recalculate now. I didn’t know you’re a Boss Monster.” Looking wide-socketed at Ilea now, he watched as she dropped her paws to her sides, seeming slightly puzzled as her soul only withdrew closer to her chest rather than vanishing, but she quickly seemed to dismiss it.

“Well, I don’t go telling everyone.” With these playful words, she walked across the room to the bed where Angel sat and sidled close to her, giving the fish monster’s shoulder a light, affectionate butt with her head. “I don’t want people treating me differently. It’s just how I was born, after all! It doesn’t make me any better than anyone else.”

“Aside from eternal life and superior power, I guess not,” Shade muttered, suddenly opting to lay down where they were, the darkness of their body swallowing up their soul’s cage. “Y’know what I don’t get? You’re, like, the heir to the throne, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you have been in the castle with the King, not hiding out in the Ruins?”

“Heir?” Ilea echoed, incomprehensive, before shaking her head from side to side, her long ears swaying. “Oh, of course - I didn’t correct you earlier. I am not a Dreemurr, though they raised me after the rest of my family…” she trailed off, frowning deeply for a moment before finishing with, “well, Asgore and Toriel may be the closest thing I have to parents, but we are not related.”

“But that doesn’t make s-sense?” Boli burst out before he could think better of it, clasping his hands together embarrassedly as the attention in the room turned on him once more. “I mean… Gaster s-said once that he did a memory extraction on you w-when you w-were  _ younger.  _ If your parents really w-were dead after the w-war… You should s-still be a little kid. Right? Unless…”

“I do not have children of my own, if that is what you’re wondering.” Ilea’s voice, gently chiding, answered rather quickly. Her eyes suddenly saddening now, she cleared her throat. “Gaster and I discussed the same thing, many years ago. He found out as much as he could, but… The most he ever said was that, well…”

Ilea’s words lapsed for several minutes, and though nobody ever piped up to urge her on, she finally uttered a quiet, shaky laugh. “He said that I most likely… “permanently damaged” my soul when I… When I tried to die. So I’ll keep on aging, just like any other monster.”

Angel was the first to cut in, her voice bordering on fury. “Yeah, well, he LIES. He probably did something to you.”

Pushing down a defensive growl that threatened to escape him, Boli instinctively shuffled back towards the door. “I… don’t think he w-w-w… I mean, he…” the boy attempted, blinking back tears of frustration.  _ Why can’t I even talk like a normal fucking monster?  _ He scolded himself silently, savagely, his attention lowering to the tile. In the end he shook his skull, wordlessly saying: “Nevermind - forget I even tried.”

“Boli’s right,” Ilea agreed, quietly. “Gaster may be… well,  _ horrible _ , but that wasn’t always the case.”

“That, and he wouldn’t’ve had anything to gain from it,” Shade added, rolling their eyes. Admittedly, given all the evidence, the ghost was the one with the more sound argument. Saying nothing, the boy only shook his skull and looked towards the overhead lights. Even if they were right, all this ill talk of the scientist made his spine crawl. 

Although Boli couldn’t quite tell whether he was purposely tuning out the rest of the conversation, or was unable to listen, he knew that he no longer picked up details, keeping his eyes on the light above him, trying to pretend it was fascinating. How much longer could it take to fix? Gaster had to know it wasn’t easy for him to be stuck here, waiting.

_ So he’s probably taking his time,  _ it occurred to Boli, and he heaved a dejected sigh. Perhaps he would be better off waiting by the elevator, where he could be alone with his own thoughts instead of being rubbed the wrong way by weaponized words aimed at Gaster. Shuffling slightly towards the door, Boli pulled his attention back to the room to gauge whether or not he could creep off unnoticed.

“Ngah - FINE! If you wanna be on his side so badly, why don’t you kiss his bony ass like that kid!?” Angel’s shout vibrated through Boli’s ribcage as she gestured towards him suddenly, calling his attention back - realizing that she had now stood up and was towering over Shade, Boli felt his soul thumping with fear, frozen to the floor.

“I wasn’t saying I’m on his side, Angel, I’m only saying he’s doing his  _ job- _ ” Shade began, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated with the other monster when they normally never appeared ruffled in the slightest. 

Springing instinctively into action before Angel could move, Boli leapt forward in between the two monsters, facing her with his teeth drawn back into a snarl. “Don’t hurt them!” he hissed, glowering up at the much larger monster. “Or - or I’ll… W-well! I-”

“Boli.” Hearing Shade’s voice, thoroughly calm once more, rise over his, the boy seemed to deflate suddenly, looking over his shoulder at the ghost, confused. “She’s not going to hurt me. We’re just talking - you know, like monsters do? We’re okay. And, Angel - go easy on him, would you? It’s not as if he’s given much choice.”

Humiliation burning his cheekbones and deep in his spine, Boli turned back towards Angel, waiting for her mocking laughter at him misreading the situation, but instead he saw sadness in her eyes as she stared down at him, as if…  _ She looks like she’s lost in thought. Did I… remind her of something? ...Someone? _

After a long moment of Boli simply returning Angel’s stare, though still daunted, she suddenly gave her head a shake and stalked towards the door, the anger that so often hung about her reappearing in an instant. “Ugh, this is  _ pointless. _ I’m going to go check the door again.” Her teeth clicked together loudly as she snapped the words, not stopping long enough for anyone to attempt to call after her before storming off into the hallway.

Ilea looked about to rise to her feet, but Shade simply shook their head, exasperated. “Give her a bit to cool off,” they sighed, “or she’ll just yell at you instead.”

Hesitantly, Ilea nodded before looking towards Boli, tipping her head as she inspected him - though her expression was innocent enough, the skeleton still found himself oddly tempted to shrink behind Shade. “Boli,” she mused after several moments, lifting a paw to beckon him. Uneasily, he stepped forward slightly.

“I am sorry if this question is untoward, but - when you say Gaster “created” you, does that not more or less make him your father?” She wondered, nothing but unassuming curiosity leading her onwards as she added, “doesn’t that make how he behaves towards you, well… uncomfortable?”

Face flushing with horror, Boli felt his hands rise to cover his cheeks immediately. For once he found no obstacles to his response as he, rather rushed, mumbled into his hands. “It’s not like w-we’re genetically related or anything - at all! W-why is it w-weird? Maybe you’re w-weird! It’s a s-s-stupid question! And untoward! Yeah, very untoward.” Covering up the cracking of his voice by breaking out into a brief bout of coughing, he now let his hands drop and and pointed back towards the door.

“You know w-what  _ is _ w-weird, is that you’re all touchy w-with that awful monster! All she ever talks about is how she w-wants to kill Gaster, and kill humans!” He went on, almost feverish in his defensiveness. “She’s horrible!” 

Blinking in surprise now, Ilea’s paws clasped against her chest, not seeming to notice that the gesture collided with her soul. “Pardon me? Angel is  _ not  _ awful -  and she has every right to be angry! Shade and I may have volunteered, but Gaster just  _ took  _ her! Not to mention he… he said these awful things to her, and…” 

“So he deserves to die?” Boli insisted furiously, shaking his skull. “W-what’s one monster’s pain - one like  _ her -  _ versus the progress of the whole kingdom?”

“I don’t think the Underground is so horrible that he should be doing this to anyone.” Reluctant to speak for fear of angering the boy further, Ilea only answered after a rather long moment of consideration.

“Tell that to all the monsters that get sick and “fall down” because of the conditions down here,” Shade cut in suddenly, a cold anger lying just beneath their calm voice, “tell that to all the hopeless kids growing up with no parents. Tell that to Napstablook and Hapstablook - go back in time and tell  _ me _ that it’s not “so horrible” before I sold my soul to Gaster because I just wanted something to  _ change _ . You think everyone isn’t desperate? You tried to kill yourself, for God’s sake, Ilea. Don’t you think that makes your point kinda… pointless?”

Looking rather conflicted now, Ilea’s paws bunched up her robe in her fists as she looked towards Boli again. “I… I didn’t mean anything by it, Boli, I am sorry. It was a foolish question. But, please - Angel truly is wonderful. She has endured so much in her lifetime. But… I suppose you would know a thing or two about that, would you not? You should certainly know that hard times can harden the soul, and she has stood against the unspeakable. Surely you can understand.”

Still rather flustered, Boli glanced towards Shade as if seeking direction, surprised to find them staring towards the floor, looking almost as if they were about to be sick. “Yeah, Ilea, he gets it,” they sighed, seeming to brace themselves before facing the skeleton squarely. “Look. Angel’s a mom, and a survivor. She didn’t ask for anything that happened to her. Neither did you.” 

Glancing towards the door and lowering their voice, they added, “probably shouldn’t mention to Angel that we talked about any of this. We only pieced it together from what she was saying during one of her Determination “episodes.””

“It seems like she’s getting better, though!” Ilea piped up suddenly, brightening. “She even yelled at her last time. I wonder if that means anything?”

Glancing sidelong towards Shade as they groaned, quietly, Boli tipped his skull to the side slightly. “Who?” he wondered aloud, though he wasn’t actually expecting a response. Ilea turned towards him, however, seeming to consider her words, though she never managed to speak before Shade interrupted, voice grim.

“Don’t,” their eyes swept over Ilea harshly, their glow dimming slightly. “She’s just a bad memory, and she’s dead. Why give her a name, or even talk about her? Do you think Angel wants you to stir up all that bad dust?”

Glancing between Ilea and Shade, the skeleton took a small step towards the door. Maybe now would be a good time to slip off…?

Though the goat monster didn’t seem to notice, Shade turned towards him, thoughtful, seeming to sense his intention to leave. “Hey, can I ask a favor, Boli?” they ventured, floating up and moving towards him slightly. “If you’re doing Ilea’s injections, Gaster must trust you enough to have free run of the whole Lab, yeah?”

Tension coiling down his spine at the question, Boli barely dared to nod his skull. Where was this going?...

They fell silent for a moment, studying the boy briefly, then they cracked a wide grin, their soul chamber visible within them for a moment as they did so. “Visit more often, would you? You’re fun to talk to, bro.”

Although his first instinct was to be suspicious, the boy found himself flushing rather quickly, hoping that it was difficult to tell in the dim light as he turned away. “Uhm… I could try. Just as long as I don’t have to talk w-with  _ her,  _ too,” he muttered, gesturing towards the hall. 

“I mean, she probably feels the same, so I’d say you’re in luck,” Shade pointed out dismissively. A moment later, they startled as suddenly, with a loud  _ clank,  _ the lights overhead sprang up to their full brightness. Glancing over at Ilea, they breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally. It was getting a bit creepy, huh-?”

Turning towards the doorway to address Boli, they stopped abruptly when they realized that the boy had taken off the moment the power switched back on. Sighing, Shade floated into the hallway, watching the boy disappear around the corner at the opposite end of the prisoner’s ward, avoiding Angel as he took his leave without so much as a goodbye.

Sighing quietly, they gave themselves a small shake.  _ Man, I hope that worked,  _ they thought, glancing back towards Ilea as she prodded at the monitor embedded in her soul.  _ He’s pretty much our only shot at survival. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to the commenter who asked why Gaster assumed Angel's abuser was male, you totally called it
> 
> ~~(Also the reason was just because G' believes masculine monsters are inherently more violent than feminine ones even though it has no significance, but he spent a lot of time around human culture at a time when it was this way and it influenced a lot of how he thinks. I could go on for days about these things. But I will not.)~~


	41. It's Time 2.0

Though he should have known better than to expect anything, Boli’s reunion with Gaster after he’d left him behind in the blacked-out Underlab still left a sour taste in his mouth. Something in the distance the scientist kept between them like a shield, and the way he barely seemed to hear a word the boy said felt  _ wrong.  _ Not that he’d been anticipating any sort of affection, he’d thought a brief acknowledgement of, “ah, so you did not die,” might have been in order.

Yet Gaster scarcely looked in his direction as they met up outside the bedroom, the scientist already stripping out of his oil-streaked labcoat before he stepped in. Boli followed just behind him, watching without a word as the other skeleton held the soiled coat at arm’s length before sighing, crumpling it up into a ball and tossing it into the wastebasket rather than the laundry hamper.

Next, he retrieved a fresh coat from the closet and pulled it on, smoothing it down several times before finally turning on his heel, headed back towards the hall. Briefly, Boli wondered if he would be making any sort point if he decided not to go after him, but it didn’t take long for him to surrender to the involuntary pull that he felt to follow. He quickly tracked Gaster down in the kitchen, where he was heating up a pot of soup - or stew? The boy wasn’t tall enough to see into the pot - on the hot plate, staring into it vacantly.

“That bad?” Boli wondered at last, not sure what else to ask. Part of him logically knew better than to think that the meltdown at the CORE had been enough to bother Gaster to this extent - but then, did anything even have to go wrong for him to behave this way? He was perpetually unhappy with  _ something. _

Contemplating how to make another attempt, Boli redirected his attention to the cabinet, pulling his weight up onto the countertop to reach a stack of bowls, which he laid out to be filled. From his perch, he managed to peer into the pot, wrinkling his nose. Mushroom stew; he should’ve guessed as much by the smell. It was nobody’s favorite, but he supposed that the captive monsters knew better than to be picky about what they were fed.

“...Need to go shopping,” Gaster mumbled, practically without bothering to open his mouth, transfixed by the steaming stew in front of him. It was unlike him to speak so informally, with so little effort - wrestling with a spark of alarm, Boli shrugged his shoulders, trying not to let on his growing concern for the scientist.

“We can do that tomorrow, or even later today, after Ilea’s injection.” Managing to keep relatively cool when he spoke, Boli now pushed himself off the counter to gather the tray and silverware, neatly setting them out for Gaster.

“Thank-you,” he spoke rather quietly once again, and Boli froze in the process of setting down the final spoon in his hand, feeling the spark of anxiety in his soul abruptly catch and begin to burn out of control. Perhaps he didn’t know much simply due to his short time on the planet and resulting lack of perspective, but he did know: Gaster did not thank monsters for basic tasks he  _ expected  _ of them. He demanded much from everyone around him and didn’t go even slightly out of his way to show gratitude. So why…?

Setting down the spoon in his hand before it could begin shaking too badly for him to do so quietly, Boli then shoved both hands into his pockets, glancing briefly at Gaster before his eyes darted away again. He could be almost certain that the scientist wouldn’t react positively if he showed his concern, but Boli found he’d already accepted whatever repercussions might come as he stepped towards Gaster, reaching up to take hold of the scientist’s wrist as he stirred the pot, holding it gently.

“S-so. What happened?” In a rare display of boldness, Boli looked levelly up at Gaster, tightening his grip as he attempted to simply lift his arm out of Boli’s grip and shrug him off like an irritating child.

Gaster’s only response at first was a noncommittal sound, and he transferred the spoon into his other hand to continue stirring, letting the one Boli had clasped onto drop. Maybe he could pass it off as a pre-hangover of sorts, or as being exhausted by his earlier DT ordeal. Or maybe it was too much effort to even respond. His throat ached though he didn’t even consider forming words. The sooner they were done here, the sooner they could get back to  _ progress  _ \- not that he even wanted to think of what progress was in this case.

Even his proximity to Ilea’s suffering, he realized, felt like a gaping hole in his chest cavity. Quietly brushing the emotions away, Gaster shook his skull. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Boli  _ that.  _

“Please?” The boy tried again, almost begging.

Stiffening, Gaster felt his hand involuntarily tighten around Boli’s to the point that he heard bone creak, though he couldn’t tell whose it was - he couldn’t feel anything. The way Boli had pleaded just then - he still sounded just the way he had when he’d come out of the genesis chamber. Or, more accurately, been locked back in. 

Up until that moment, he hadn’t realized the depth of his guilt for how Boli’s life had begun. It had all been so… excessive. Yet he knew he’d stand by what he’d done. The self-hatred that stabbed into him at the thought felt stale.

Abruptly dropping the spoon in his hand and letting it lean on the pot edge, Gaster found himself covering his face with his spare hand, breathing shakily as, without warning, tears threatened to escape from his sockets. Caught off-guard by the sudden resurgence of emotion he thought he’d had under control, he turned away from Boli fully, though not pulling his hand away from the boy.  So, there would have to be an explanation after all. 

“Do you ever consider what it would be like to know that you are, inevitably and relatively imminently, going to die?” Gaster burst out without thinking, turning towards Boli and looking down at his huge, concerned sockets. “And knowing all that you will leave unfinished - and knowing  _ how  _ you will die, and… how horrible it will be. Do you ponder that dread?”

“Uh, wow,” Boli gaped in response, helplessly, before quickly shutting his hanging-open jaw and pushing forward to wrap his arms around Gaster’s ribcage, holding tightly. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what else to do. Rather than pushing him away, he felt the scientist’s arms return the embrace, lightly, and he shook with noiseless, bitter laughter.

“My apologies, I believe I forgot myself for a moment there,” Gaster sighed, glancing towards the pot on the hot plate to note that it had begun bubbling before conjuring up a magical hand to turn the heat off, not releasing Boli in the process. Even given a few moments to consider what he might say, it seemed the boy still had no words for him, so he distracted himself by pulling away so that he could distribute the subject’s meals into bowls.

“W-we… w-we don’t have to do this anymore, you know.” The creation piped up after Gaster had all but let the topic slip from his mind. “W-we can always quit. It isn’t too late for that.”

Even entertaining the thought stung, but Gaster found his voice was perfectly stoic - even empty - when he responded. “Very well. Go cut off the power to the Underlab and we will let them all die and forget they existed.”

“W-what!?” Boli’s voice cracked as he shouted the exclamation, shaking his skull. “No! That’s… that’s not w-what I meant at all! I just-”

“Perhaps we could let Shade go. They would not have any qualms staying silent after what happened here.”

“That’s not true!” 

“But Ilea and Angel could never go free. They would have to die. I suppose you could do it yourself, if you had such a desire, but I don’t see why-”

“Gaster,  _ shut up _ , that’s not w-what I meant!” Breathing heavier now, Boli took a step towards the scientist, his eyes glaring up at the back of his skull. “I just… I don’t know. W-we could tell them s-something happened to Chara’s soul after the blackout and hold them until it’s been long enough that you could pull out their memories and turn them loose. Then w-we could work on breaking the Barrier some other way! Just you and me, and nobody gets hurt.”

Rather than pointing out the innumerable reasons it wouldn’t work - Gaster knew he would be the first to be consulted on a case of monsters randomly reappearing after months with no memory - he found himself simply shaking his head, swinging around to face Boli.

“I don’t  _ want  _ to.” He snapped simply, curling his lip in a snarl down at the boy. “Do you not think that this is going anywhere? Do you think it is no longer worth it to obtain results after all that I have already sacrificed for this path? If I had not accepted Chara’s soul in the first place, Sans would...”

The lights died out of Boli’s sockets at these words and the boy lowered his skull slightly, stifling a quake that shook his chest, though he wasn’t sure whether it was a laugh or a sob. “And Portulaca, too. You’d have a s-son to go back to. All these people you feel like you lost, but you  _ threw  _ them away. How disappointing it must be that you only have  _ me _ now.” They didn’t sound like his words - he knew. He knew it wasn’t something that he would say. It was only a mockery of what he had heard so many times before from his creator. 

Through his downcast field of vision, Boli had no way of seeing Gaster’s retaliation before it came, but he braced himself - insufficiently - for the hand that reached down and grabbed him by the clavicle in one hand, lifting him effortlessly and pinning him to the wall next to the kitchen’s door. Breathing rapidly - though he did all he could to make sure his fear didn’t show - he met Gaster’s empty sockets with his, waiting. 

_ What happens if I’m the monster he kills and maximizes his LV?  _ Boli found himself wondering, clenching his chattering teeth together and closing his sockets.  _ He has to know that  _ can’t  _ happen. If he kills me - _

Sputtering a moment later as he felt Gaster’s mouth press to his, Boli jerked his skull back, inadvertently giving it a solid smack on the wall behind him. “W-w-what are you  _ doing _ ?” He growled, pushing his arms against Gaster’s ribs, trying fruitlessly to free himself from his position against the wall.

As quickly as he had surged forward, Gaster stepped back now, his hands steepling in front of his chest once he let Boli back down to his feet. Realizing he looked deeply confused, Boli found himself feeling quite the same. 

“I… I do not know… how - I mean, I did not mean…” Falling silent, the scientist turned towards the tray of stew waiting to be carried down to the Underlab before walking over to it and picking it up, walking past Boli and into the hallway. He stopped briefly, looking over his shoulder, scrutinizing the boy as he stood on shaking legs, still trying to process the last few minutes.

“You know that I am glad you exist,” he managed at last, rearranging the tray so it rested on his ulna and radius to free one hand, which he extend towards Boli, palm up. Welcoming him,  _ asking _ him, to come take it. “Do you not?”

Shaking his skull, Boli pointedly turned away from the scientist in the doorway. “...I’ll catch up,” he sighed, gesturing back towards him, “I just… need a minute.” Though he didn’t hear Gaster depart, when he looked into the hall, he had already vanished. 

_ The hell was that? “I’m glad you exist?”  _ Boli repeated silently to himself as he trudged slowly in the direction of the elevator, struggling to sort out his thoughts.  _ Was that some sort of backwards way of saying he doesn’t regret it? ‘Cuz I know that’s a lie.  _

Giving his skull a shake, he quickened his pace to call the elevator back up. There would be plenty of downtime to work it out later. That was, if Gaster didn’t decide he was unwilling or unable to talk about anything substantial, as usual. 

By the time he reached the Underlab, he checked over the monitors quickly, unsurprised to find that Gaster was loitering in Chara’s room, appearing to be simply waiting around for him. Soon after, he allowed a faint smile to appear on his face upon seeing Ilea, Shade and Angel gathered contently around a table with their meal, sharing a conversation that Boli, oddly, wished he could at least listen to. When Angel suddenly tossed her head back and laughed toothily, he felt a strange ache in his abdominal cavity. 

Did she see the way Ilea looked at her, with eyes full of passion? It was foreign to Boli, yet entrancing. He found it difficult to pull his attention away so that he could make his way to Chara’s room. Gaster, clearly having heard him coming, was leaning on the countertop, looking closely at the first dose for Ilea that had been calculated and measured out.

“A little low, wouldn’t you say?” He wondered, tipping the vial back and forth in his hand thoughtfully. 

“Yeah, I need to redo all of it,” Boli sighed, walking across the room to snatch the vial from Gaster’s hand. “W-would’ve been nice for you to mention at some point that she’s a Boss Monster, don’t you think?” he snapped a moment later, pulling open the fridge to retrieve the rack of vials, which he’d deliberately labelled  _ ILEA.  _ Had Gaster noticed? He set aside the vial in his hand, but a moment later, it had somehow ended up back in Gaster’s grasp, and he was staring blankly at it now.

“It… must have slipped my mind.” Hearing the other skeleton muse the words absentmindedly, numbly, Boli turned to face him with a puzzled frown. The way he stared into the distance, his sockets darkened, presented Boli with rather surprising evidence.

“You… have to have known,” he ventured nervously, studying Gaster’s expression. “You had to examine her soul for the memory procedure. And, um… W-well, I w-was talking w-with her after the power w-went down and she told me you two had a talk about… how she’s aging, even w-with her Boss S-soul. You  _ have  _ to have known?”

After blinking several times, the lights returned to Gaster’s sockets and he nodded his skull, though continuing to stare towards the door, dazed. “Yes, I knew - of course I knew. But I had… forgotten I know?” Frowning, he linked his index and thumb digit through the hole in his palm. “I believe you could relate to knowing something, but not realizing you know until someone else brings it up.”

“Uh… Yeah, I guess,” Boli agreed uneasily, glancing at the vials in his hands before shaking his skull, opening the fridge again and returning them to their shelf. “You know w-what? This is my call. S-so… I’m just going to use the dosage I had measured. If her s-soul  _ is _ damaged, it might be more like a regular monster’s anyways. I can always adjust it later.”

Nodding, Gaster offered the vial he still held in his hand to Boli. “As you wish. I believe your judgement is more sound, anyways.” As the boy crossed the room to take the tube from his hand, Gaster couldn’t help noticing the way he made a point to look the him in the eye, playing at being bold. Deciding against making any remarks, he simply leaned back against the counter, watching as the boy continued about his task, preparing a syringe with what were, at this point, well-practiced motions. 

“W-we’re going to have a talk later,” Boli mused once done, turning to face Gaster. Watching as the scientist looked towards the ceiling coolly, as if he hadn’t heard, the boy cleared his throat, adding more firmly, “about earlier. Okay?” 

“Absolutely,” Gaster agreed flatly, striding across the room and heading off down the hall without another word. At this point, it was hard to predict what exactly the experiment wanted to “talk” about. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” he called back after a few moments, his voice echoing down the hall, an unmistakable note of anger sharpening his voice.

Drawing a deep breath to steady himself, Boli nodded his head and followed after Gaster - he was right. The sooner they got through the task, the better. By the time he’d caught up with the scientist - he was obviously hurrying, taking advantage of his head start - he had already gone ahead to the holding cells. 

Almost losing his balance from how abruptly he halted before he could pass the security monitors, Boli found himself watching in horror over the screens as Gaster barged in on the gathered trio with a dangerous confidence that sent a cold fear deep into his spine. He couldn’t hear the conversation that ensued, but judging by the way Shade took their bowl and slunk off about as quickly as they could, the scientist surely wasn’t spewing niceties.

Angel, however, stood up to confront Gaster moments later, stepping in front of Ilea and puffing out her chest. Covering his mouth in horror, Boli gave his skull a shake.  _ No, Angel, just go! I’m not going to hurt her, please, just don’t make him angry-  _

Though he wished he could simply close his sockets for the next thirty seconds or so, Boli found that he could only watch as Gaster lunged forward with virtually no hesitation, his hand closing in a vicegrip around Angel’s bicep. Physically dragging her from the room, he seemed thoroughly unbothered by the wild thrashing she employed to attempt to free herself. Ilea watched after with a fist clenched against her stomach, but made no move to stop him.

When Gaster threw the fish monster forward into her room, Boli found himself gnawing at his index digit’s knuckle as the scientist towered in the doorway menacingly.  _ You got her out of the way, Gaster, please, just leave her alone now…  _ he pleaded silently, cringing as the other skeleton marched into the room, slamming something down on the table, clearly hard enough to produce quite the noise - Angel flinched at the impact. Moments later, Gaster turned on his heel and left the room, shutting the door behind him with deliberate lightness.

Squinting closer at the monitor, Boli managed to identify the object Gaster had left on the table as Angel’s DT injection. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief as he realized that the other skeleton was now returning back the way he’d come, Boli pulled himself away from the monitors to meet him at the entrance of the holding sector. Entering the passcode to the door quickly, he pushed it open, hoping he managed to look nonchalant when Gaster glanced down at him briefly. Pulling in a deep breath, he circled around the scientist, headed purposefully down the hallway towards Ilea’s room. It was no surprise to him that Gaster did not follow.

When he reached the door, Ilea had already set aside her bowl and spoon and was sitting facing the door expectantly, her hands clasped in her lap. Seeing Boli, she straightened up properly, giving him a nervous, thin smile. Returning the expression, the boy stepped through the open door, making sure to allow full view of the syringe in his hand - though, judging by the way he was received, she clearly already knew why he’d returned. Not a difficult conclusion to come to, considering their earlier conversation.

“You ready?” Boli asked softly as he drew closer to where Ilea sat.

For a moment, Ilea only held her paws out, her soul floating forward to rest in them; her eyes seemed profoundly sad in that moment, her jaw quavering for a moment before she looked up to Boli. “Does it hurt?” she wondered, looking about to crumple into tears. “Angel’s hallucinations… It seems so horrible. What if I see… What if I see whatever I forgot? I know it’s still in there -  I have nightmares. I’m just… I’m not as strong as she is, Boli. I...”

“It’s okay to be s-s-scared, Ilea, I am too,” Boli cut in, reaching forward to rest his hand lightly on her arm, running his fingers through fur so thick his hand could vanish into it. “It’s a natural response to a threat. But I’m going to do everything in my power to make s-sure you’re s-safe. I promise. All you need to do is be brave and… s-stay s-sane. No matter what you see, you’re s-still  _ here _ , understand? Nobody w-will hurt you.”

“Have you… has Gaster given you an injection?” Ilea whimpered, sounding as if she was scared to ask, and Boli found himself hearing what she  _ really  _ meant -  _ has he forced you to be one of us?  _

Shaking his skull, Boli looked to Ilea’s tear-filled eyes for a moment before, on the whim of emotional instinct, swept his hand out from his sternum, revealing his soul. Watching it flicker weakly like a flame about to die out, he reluctantly looked back up to Ilea. “S-see how different our s-souls are? Because of how I w-was made, I have less magic holding me together. Less than any monster born naturally. Gaster… W-well. He doesn’t s-say it, but... “ Trailing off, Boli gave his soul a quick pat and it retreated back through his shirt to safety.

“He thinks I’ll fall apart if he even breathes on me wrong.”

A long silence stretched between the two monsters before Ilea wiped away the tears beading up in the corners of her eyes, giving her head a firm shake. “Okay… I understand! You’re very brave, also, aren’t you, Boli? And Shade, too… You’re all afraid, but you don’t surrender. I won’t either. It’s time for me to show the same courage that you all have.” With these words, she held her paws farther from her chest, bringing her soul closer to Boli’s trembling hands. 

Finally. It was time.


	42. Fractures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **It'd be cool if you read the end note. ******

_ No more hesitating.  _

With only a brief glance towards the security monitor, making eye contact with the lens pointfully, Boli faced Ilea again, nodding resolutely. With one final preparing breath, he uncapped the syringe and inserted it into the core of Ilea’s soul, quickly pushing the plunger and pulling it back neatly - textbook; expert, even, he liked to think. Setting aside the used needle now, he took a step back and clasped his hands together anxiously.

At first, Ilea’s eyes went blank, staring at the space in front of her; then, suddenly, her attention snapped to the chair in front of her, as if someone had suddenly appeared there; shrinking back instinctively, Boli took another pace back. All he could do was wait.

“Chara?” She breathed, her voice shaking like a leaf in a tornado, as if barely daring to even utter the name. “No…”

Quickly enough for it to have happened between blinks, Ilea’s expression flashed to undisguised mortification - then, before Boli could even speak to ask her what she saw, a sudden gush of red liquid sprang from her nostrils, soaking her muzzle through in an instant. Boli didn’t quite have time to process what was happening - the crimson leak spread, flowing from her mouth, from beneath her drooping ears, even her eyes. Her anguished scream sent a horror that Boli couldn’t measure quaking through him - he could barely make out the words she was trying to form at first:

“It burns! It burns! Help me, father!” 

Swinging towards the door, Boli prepared to make a mad sprint to get Gaster, but he found that the scientist was already standing in the doorway, though he looked frozen in terror by the sight of Ilea, or more specifically, the rivers of red that had already soaked through her pale fur, saturating her robe, soaking through the fingers of her paws as she pressed them into her face.

“Oh - god, oh god, Gaster, w-w-w-” Boli struggled against the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him, his knees rattling noisily as he stepped closer to the scientist, tears overflowing from his sockets. “I didn’t - I, I… I did everything right, I don’t-”

Appearing to be suddenly flung back to reality by the sound of his voice, Gaster merely reached forward to push Boli aside - almost gingerly - before crossing the room in what seemed to be one stride to cup either side of Ilea’s face, trying to coax her back to reality with the touch.

“Can you hear me, Ilea?” Gaster pleaded, searching her vacant eyes, not sure if his voice was audible over the screaming.

“Please make her s-s-stop.” Gaster scarcely heard Boli whimper from by the door where he stood with his hands pressed to his ears, tears streaming down his cheekbones. “I can’t… I don’t… I didn’t make a mistake.”

Not turning back, Gaster reached down into his pocket to retrieve the soul reader corresponding to Ilea’s monitor, smearing red across his labcoat. Feeling his soul plummet into his abdominal cavity, he dropped the device carelessly. Moments later, his hands rose at his sides and - with a deafening drone of magic being discharged - summoned up a gargantuan bone beast that took Boli a moment to identify as a Blaster. 

It could take up a small room with its sheer mass, and even from the distance at which Boli stood, he could feel the power coming off it in waves - nothing but overwhelming static, unreadable. The very same enigmatic darkness that seemed to hang about Gaster’s soul filled the room and the Blaster turned to gaze down at Boli, the crack above its mouth giving it the appearance of sneering maliciously. It felt almost as if the beast recognized him.

It soon turned back to face Ilea, though, and Boli’s attention shifted to Gaster. Watching indigo magic pool in the hole in Gaster’s palm, feeling dread pump through him deeply, Boli found that all he could do was cover his eyes. Was he going to put Ilea out of her misery before the Determination could eat its way through her? But his LV-

“ _ Hurk! _ ” Boli grunted loudly as the air was driven out of him by a massive impact that he couldn’t see coming; he swore he could hear the crack of his ribs, and the room spun around him - by the time he managed to get his bearings, he could feel air flowing around him and realized that he was no longer on the ground, but instead, being carried between an enormous set of bone teeth; the Blaster had scooped him up, almost crushing him in the process.

“Gaster!” The boy cried out, begging, looking around frantically as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. It took a moment, but he spotted the scientist just ahead of him, sprinting full tilt; he scarcely managed to skid to a halt to type the passcode into the door ahead of them, and, as he did so, Boli tried to twist out of the bone spurs that held him firmly in place.

They were at the elevator in an instant, and it was only then that Boli realized he could still hear Ilea’s anguished sounds, though they had faded now, nothing more than pathetic whimpering. Bracing his arms against the bone trap he was held in, Boli tried in vain to pry open the jaw of his prison; it was useless. “Gaster!” He repeated, his voice cracking with panic. “W-w-what is  _ happening _ ?”

No answer came until the elevator door had closed and Gaster - back plastered to the wall of the tight space so that he could fit - appeared in his line of vision, reaching up onto the muzzle of the blaster that held Boli captive and pulling Ilea down into his arms, cradling her head in his hand and looking towards the small skeleton. Unavoidably, he noticed the red smeared across a majority of Gaster’s face now, the sleeves of his coat soaked up to the elbows. How could there be so much?

“She’s going to die,” Boli realized, yelping a moment later as the Blaster’s jaw suddenly hinged open, dropping him hard onto the floor. Then, Gaster was kneeling in front of him, trembling from the weight of the monster in his arms. 

“Heal,” the scientist’s single, hoarse word barely reached Boli at first, but the boy found himself lifting his hands towards Ilea, quaking, not knowing where to focus his magic. The lights in his eyes settled on Ilea’s soul and through vision blurred by tears, he processed the tiny fractures spreading across her soul. In moments, she would scatter apart and be gone.

_ But I  _ won’t  _ let that happen. I made a promise. _

Serenity that Boli had never known wrapped around his mind, cocooning him in the simplicity of what it was he had to do. Focusing his attention on Ilea’s soul, not daring to even blink, he squinted against the light that shone from his own socket, his soul, his hands. Soon, it was too bright to see Ilea’s soul against the green light that bathed the elevator, but he could hear her agony beginning to lapse, and instead, Boli found he could only detect Gaster’s sobbing breaths.

It occurred to part of Boli’s mind that this would the most vulnerable the Royal Scientist would ever be. Not for him. Never for him.

Letting the force of his healing recede slightly as it began to send an ache through him, Boli gasped for breath; already, it was beginning to feel as if there was not enough magic left in his body to keep his hands up by Ilea’s soul - barely enough to keep him on his feet. Swaying, the boy briefly mashed hand into his socket. If the room would just stop spinning - 

“Boli, it’s not enough - her magic systems are shutting down! You’re all that’s keeping her together!”

Looking over Ilea now to meet Gaster’s stare, the boy clenched his hands into fists.  _ You can still do this,  _ he told himself, closing his sockets and reaching deep into himself in search of the strength he  _ knew  _ existed - it  _ had  _ to. It had to.

Sinking his weight back against the Blaster still hovering behind him, Boli focused all he had left on the task; he let the rest of the world fade from his mind. Somewhere in what was left of his conscious thought, he knew: if he failed, it would be the end. Not just for Ilea - for all of them.

Only vaguely aware of being picked up and moved again, the boy struggled silently through the pain that knotted up in his soul, growing into an ungodly ache that he clenched his jaw against.  _ It’s nothing like what Ilea’s suffering,  _ he reminded himself, stifling a heaving sob at the burning, splintering feeling that spread up his spine, pooling up in the right side of his skull. Struggling to stay conscious, to carry on his task, he blindly reached a hand past Ilea, searching for Gaster.

Lowering his face to the outstretched hand that had been reached out, seemingly unseeing, Gaster brushed his mouth across the boy’s fingers, gently. “I’m here,” he whispered between laboured breaths, continuing down the hall towards the Soul Repair Bay.

It seemed in that moment only yesterday that Asgore had appeared in the doorway of his office, carrying the very same failing body that Gaster now held - the king had uttered only one word then: “Please.” The years had felt like a blink. 

Staggering into the room, Gaster laid Ilea down on the table in the center; instinct took over and a swarm of magic hands set about tasks that he had memorized, attaching monitors and entering data as fast as it could be relayed. 

With the task done, Gaster let his legs give out and knelt before the table, his hands gripping onto the leather edge, holding him upright. Behind him, his Blaster faded from existence, dropping Boli onto the tile with a thump. Alerted by the sound, he swivelled to face the boy. 

Ilea’s life was up to her will to hold together and the tides of fate now; there was no more for Gaster to do for her. With this in mind, he reached over where Boli lay, barely conscious, his hands still outstretched towards nothing, aglow with flickering magic.

“Boli, it’s done,” Gaster breathed, touching his hand to the boy’s back. “You’re done.”

The boy’s hands dropped after what seemed to be several seconds to process the words, and he sprawled onto his front, still as a corpse aside from the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Carefully, Gaster slid closer to the boy, slipping his hands under his light frame and pulling him easily into his lap, cradling him as one might an infant. 

Something wasn’t quite right; it took a moment for the scientist to make sense of what he could see past the viscous green liquid that stuck to Boli’s face, leaking from an unknown source. Shaking, the scientist searched his labcoat for a clean spot to wipe away the circulatory magic that was escaping. Recoiling in horror the moment he had, though, the scientist found himself pulling at his own socket and it creaked loudly under the force.

“Oh, Gods, Boli, what have I done to you?” 

The corner of Boli’s socket, closest to his nasal cavity, had begun to cave in; tiny, dark cracks spread out from his burnt-out socket like spider legs, arcing between the weak points in his freckled cheeks, following across to the other socket. As Gaster reached over to tightly take Boli’s hand in his, the faintest crackle of green light fizzled in the boy’s hollow eye.  He stirred slightly, and the scientist could feel his hand twitch before it tightened, now gripping as if it was all that he knew to do.

Leaning down to Boli, Gaster touched his mouth gently to the boy’s forehead first, then to his unresponsive teeth. Hovering inches away, he closed his sockets, touching his own forehead to the boy’s. 

“If there is any love in me, Boli - any love at all. For this, I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay friendos I've been putting off making a decision on the longevity of this fic, but I can't do this much longer, so I'm gonna ask a vague opinion-based thing here and you can comment below if you care either way:
> 
> Potentially, as things stand, I _could_ do a part two of this story, which would put me fairly close to the end of this part. Part two would involve more characters from the actual game, but Boli would, of course, be the main character. However, I can't really make any promises that I would be invested in a part two or actually finish it. 
> 
> _Or,_ I could drag out what I've got going now until I've fit in all that I wanted to and it'd be over, but honestly, I'm not sure how much more I can get out of the plot before certain characters reach the end of their arc and just... stagnate/fall out of significance. But it'd be more likely to have a real end without starting anything new to be potentially abandoned partway through.
> 
> I dunno guys. If there's enough "fuck yeah I'd want a part two," I could see myself putting in effort and getting that done. I _did_ start this out as a personal pursuit, and I like feeling like I'm getting this to any number of readers, but now I'm looking for feedback on whether anyone's interested in this updating for, well... the foreseeable future, rather than just 2-3 more months.
> 
>  
> 
> Lemme know if y'all care. It's p much up to the response I get at this point.


	43. Absolution

The lights went down for the night and left Gaster in darkness aside from the faint glow of magic holding Ilea’s life together at the seams, trying to stabilize her soul. As the Determination tried to burn her up from within, the Repair Bay slaved away to work against the force that seemed intent to rip her apart.

_ *Why? _

Looking down to Boli’s unseeing sockets where he laid in his lap, Gaster reached down to stroke his fingers over the boy’s face, feeling the ridges of the fresh cracks arcing in a crescent shape from socket to socket. 

* _ How could you let any of this happen? You should have done the injection yourself. _

“He didn’t make a mistake.”

* _ You can’t take his word for it. You can’t trust him! Look what happened to Ilea! _

“He  _ did not  _ make a mistake, Chara!” Clutching at his mouth a moment later as he realized just how loudly he had shouted the words, he glanced down to Boli, half expecting him to have jerked back to consciousness. But he lay still as the grave, his crooked smirk fixed almost comically into his skull, like it was painted on. It would be too easy to think he was on death’s door if not for the vague rise and fall of his chest, and the way his socket fizzled occasionally with faltering magic.

With Gaster’s furious yell, the human’s presence was gone from the room as swiftly as it had come and he found himself staring down at Boli again, trying to piece together how things had gone so horribly wrong. It was a difficult task with no facts nor figures to read off the soul reader he’d left behind in the Underlab. All he knew for certain was that the blame didn’t lay on Boli. Not after what he’d endured to keep Ilea alive for the minutes it took for Gaster to rush her here. If not for that, she certainly would not have survived.

_ I must make sure he knows that,  _ the scientist thought, shifting Boli’s weight in his lap as he tried to rearrange himself into a more bearable position; the tile was beginning to send an ache up his spine. He wasn’t sure if the boy would hear anything he’d say now - likely for the best, as Gaster had yet to organize his thoughts.

Finally unable to stay seated on the floor any longer, Gaster transferred the boy’s weight into one arm and pulled himself up with no small amount of effort, groaning as the joints in his spine and legs cracked in a cacophony of protest. Though he knew it was impossible, sometimes it seemed to him as though he was getting older somehow.

Improvising, Gaster cleared off enough space on the desk of the terminal and laid out a few layers of clean linens from the closet before setting Boli down gingerly in the makeshift bed, tucking a sheet over him. Breathing a sigh of relief as the boy seemed to relax slightly once he was reclined and covered up, Gaster finally turned away from him to look at Ilea - though it was difficult to bring himself to do so.

The “blood” on her face had begun to dry up and mat up her fur, though Gaster supposed it was a good sign that the leak had finally stopped. Walking across the room on shaking legs to look at her more closely, he felt tears beginning to burn in his sockets almost immediately. 

“I  _ will _ find out what happened, Ilea,” he vowed, reaching back behind him and summoning up a hand that lifted a chair to where he stood so he could perch on it, fidgeting with his hands for a few moments before finally reaching forward to interlock his fingers with hers, fighting a shudder at the damp, sticky feeling against his fingers. “I will not let anything like this happen to you, or the others, again.”

It was all too easy to recall Boli’s earlier words in that moment: That they didn’t have to do this anymore. There was a way out. Somehow. If Boli and him put their skulls together, they could find a way to reset everything back to how it had been before he had ever taken Angel. Yet at the mere thought, Gaster felt his entire mind protesting against it with such force that he could scarcely think through it. 

It was unacceptable to quit now. It pained him to admit it to himself - yet he knew he had to acknowledge it. He had to face the reality that, even if Ilea had not held together - even if she had scattered to dust in his hands - he would go on. He was so far past the tipping point now that he couldn’t even hypothesize a way back. It wasn’t an option.

More than anything, he dreaded the sickened look that Boli would fix on him the moment that he realized that the experiments would go on. It would be so much revulsion, so much disappointment.  _ I told him I will never quit,  _ he reminded himself. Releasing Ilea’s paw now and standing up, he paced the room, at a loss for what to do.

He couldn’t risk a trip back down to the Underlab to retrieve the soul reader and upload its data to study - if Ilea’s condition took a turn for the worse, he would have to be there to adjust the magic holding her stable. And if Boli awoke after what had just happened and found that he wasn’t there… Looking towards the boy’s figure bundled up on the desk, Gaster heaved a sigh.

He had spent so long trying to forget the emotions that had dug themselves out of a grave in his soul upon seeing Ilea on on the verge of death ago - now, they were doubled. It was too much to process. Not knowing what to do with himself, he sat back down at Ilea’s side and waited; just as he had that night, with Asgore in the doorway, never budging. They had not exchanged words.

As daylight rolled around that night, Gaster had dismissed the king - with no small argument - telling him that the rest of his family needed him. Asriel had not been old enough yet to understand, but the scientist had felt a jolt of agony to imagine what thoughts must be racing through Toriel’s head while she stayed at home to watch over the castle with her child. 

Though, deep in a part of him he would not acknowledge, Gaster had felt a curious outrage. Was Ilea not her child as well? Not by lineage - but Toriel had claimed responsibility of the girl when she was very young. How could she have let it happen?

_ Even she can be selfish,  _ Gaster reminded himself now.  _ She is no saint. She is not what I hold her up to be in my mind - no one is so kind and selfless. No one should be.  _ Shaking off the sorrow that clung to him as best he could, he brought a hand closer to Ilea’s face, but faltered as he realized he couldn’t tell which of her eyes bore the flower-shaped marking beneath the red. He knew by heart it was her right, of course - but it was impossible to discern. Pushing past the ache that came with the realization, he gingerly touched his fingertips to her fur.

“Little flower,” he breathed, so quietly that he might as well have not made a sound. Yet it seemed to reach Ilea and she stirred, her eyes opening slightly, looking around; it seemed she was only vaguely conscious, he realized quickly - and should not be yet. He would have to adjust the soul anesthesia. Moving towards the terminal to do so, he stopped immediately as Ilea croaked out a single word.

“Father?” 

Freezing, Gaster turned back around to face her, windpipe burning. Who was she asking for? Asgore, or the one she had lost to the war? Feeling anguish bite down on his spine, the scientist cleared his throat to softly ask, “what is it, Ilea?”

The monster on the bed fell silent for a rather long time - long enough for Gaster to believe that she had fallen unconscious once more on her own accord. But then, with a shivering rise and fall of her chest as she fought back tears, she managed to choke out, “I’m sorry.”

The images of the Trectop clan’s destruction played over in Gaster’s head in an instant and he wrapped a hand around his sternum, pulling in a deep breath. Had the Determination broken the dam that held back the floodgates of horror? Or was this simply the lost ramblings of a monster not quite back from the grave, looking for absolution from beyond? 

“I forgive you, Ilea,” he rasped at last, leaning down to touch his teeth to Ilea’s forehead. “We all forgive you. We all  _ love _ you.”

Tears cleared the red from her fur in streaks now and she reached up towards the ceiling blindly. Instinctively, Gaster leaned away to avoid her paw making contact, ruining whatever illusion her soul was conjuring up. Undeniably empty now, he watched in silence as she stroked her paw pads over an invisible face, nothing short of euphoria coming across her expression. 

Would this matter? Would she remember? 

Pulling himself away from the scene, Gaster turned his back on Ilea to head over to the terminal, leaning over the keyboard, ready to adjust her anesthesia and send her back to restful unconsciousness. Before he could, though, he felt a hand close around his wrist joint - though nothing more than a red outline, the childlike grip felt real enough that for a moment he’d thought it was Boli’s.

_ *Look at her SOUL, Gaster,  _ they urged, their voice filled with static and distortion.

Sockets widening, cold fear driving deep into his spine, he found he barely had the courage to obey the command. As he looked over, though, it felt almost as if the world came to a standstill; convinced his eyes were deceiving him, he reached down into his pocket for his glasses, wiping the lenses with a clean part of his coat before putting them on.

It was no trick of the light - no mistake. Her soul was no longer the translucent white of a monster’s, but a warm shade of pink, as soft and welcoming as a sunrise. 

_ *Your first result. Are you happy, Gaster? _

Stumbling over his feet, the skeleton felt his hands beginning to shake. There were so many things that he knew he should feel, but nothing ever came. 

_ *No? _

_ *You will never be happy. _


	44. Seasons Change, but Monsters?/Kindred Spirits

“Entry s-six in the Determination series. After receiving her first injection of Determination, Subject Five - designation: Ilea - was observed to go into full system rejection of the foreign substance. She was quickly rushed to the Soul Repair Bay where we managed to save her life. Immediately after, during a spell of hallucinations, her Soul underwent a sudden change of hue, and further inspection revealed that it had mutated and begun to produce her own Determination.

“With this change came a shift in its readings to rather s-strongly resemble a human s-soul. S-so far it s-seems like a perfect confirmation of Gaster’s hypothesis. But there’s a bigger question here.

“As of right now, it’s unclear w-whether or not the change will be temporary, but it’s by far our most promising result since this started. For now, our job is to find out what exactly happened, and  _ w-why _ , so that we might be able to recreate the results in Shade and Angel. And if it ends up not being permanent, guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Until then, here’s what we know:

“When Ilea awoke after her change, she was very disoriented, but given time she seemed to remember some of what happened. By her account, she saw Chara, and they spoke to her - this was before her body began to reject the Determination. After that, she claims to have no memory until waking up back in the Underlab. I... don’t w-want to push her, but I  _ know _ that’s a lie.

“I’ll just have to keep working with what I know.”

“Who are you talking to, Boli?” Gaster’s voice sounded from outside in the hall and the boy on the bed jumped, fumbling and nearly dropping the recorder in his hands before managing to quickly shut it down and hide it away in the pocket of his sweater. 

“Nobody - I mean, myself!” He called back quickly, pushing his hands under his femurs and sitting on them to avoid fidgeting as Gaster stepped fully into the room, his arms laden with files, his black turtleneck smeared with dust from digging through old archives. The bedroom, normally kept rather tidy aside from a few articles of clothing that never made it to the hamper, was stacked with papers, and as Gaster placed the stack in his arms down, Boli gazed over the collection. 

If the scientist brought many more crates of folders into the room, it would be difficult to make one’s way from the door to the bed. There had to be years of transcriptions littered about the room; knowledge that nobody had touched in decades, that even Gaster had let slip from his mind. It would be thrilling if only it weren’t so terribly  _ dull. _

Standing back and putting his hands on his hips as if examining his handiwork, Gaster took a shaky breath before stifling a sneeze. Groaning quietly, he turned back towards the boy, a smirk affixed on his face. “Isn’t it ironic that I’m allergic to dust?” he remarked, sly.

Avoiding looking at the scientist, Boli flipped himself back into a laying position to continue skimming the papers he had laid out on the bed. “That’s not funny,” he mumbled after a moment, tensing as he felt Gaster’s weight shake the bed as he flopped down heavily next to him.

“I thought it was right down your alley of humor,” he sighed, propping up his skull in his hand and glancing over the slightly crumpled parchment. “Hm. No, none of this is right, either." With this, he began to gather up the sheets.

Biting his tongue, Boli decided against bothering to protest as Gaster swept the sheets back into their folder and brought over a fresh pile, slapping them down on the mattress. “Trust me, I know what I am looking for,” he reassured the boy, glancing sidelong at him. Boli didn’t return the look, simply sighing and opening the folder on the top of the stack and beginning to spread everything out. “I do wish I had bothered to label more of them, though, considering I was intoxicated for a vast majority of the transcribing. I think.” 

“That explains the handwriting.” 

At first, Gaster felt a small stirring of hope that he had heard humor in Boli’s voice, but the boy merely stared down at the papers, squinting, his mouth pulled into a displeased grimace. 

Looking at his creation, a craving stirred in Gaster for what had once been - for what he had stomped down in himself so many times. Now, it seemed when he longed for emotions most, they could not be rekindled in the object of his affection. But surrendering was not in the scientist’s nature.

Almost involuntarily, Gaster reached over to run a finger across Boli’s cheek closest to him, caressing the ridges of fractures in his cheekbones that seemed to deepen with the expression of concentration on his face. Swiftly and forcefully, the boy smacked his hand away. 

“Stop reminding me,” he spat, moving onto the next folder without glancing towards Gaster.

“They’re lovely,” was all the scientist responded with, taking his own folder and leafing through it briefly. Hearing Boli sigh with agitation, he cautiously added, “they give you character.”

“Which would be fantastic if I was forty-something! I’m like, a kid! Not to mention that every fuckin’ time I look in the mirror, I get to remember how badly I messed up!”

“Oh, Boli,  _ please _ \- you did not “mess” anything up, for the thousandth time!” Losing his patience, Gaster pushed aside his papers into the ‘pile of shame’ that rested on the opposite side of the bed - all of the folders that had been deemed irrelevant. “Let me see, perhaps I can come up with yet  _ another _ way to phrase that you saved Ilea’s life, did not make a mistake with the injection, and supplied us with invaluable results.”

Feigning looking rather deep in thought, the scientist eventually shook his head. “There are only so many ways to tell you that your accomplishment was nothing but a blessing - but you will not hear it. Can’t you see? You have made a leap forward.”

“My face is  _ broken _ .”

Letting his skull fall out of where it rested in his palm, Gaster faceplanted into the mattress and he sighed. “Well, that makes two of us.” Though he didn’t bother raising his voice to make sure he was heard despite being muffled by the mattress, he still swore he heard Boli sigh, laced with even more irritation than before.

Neither of them would say it, of course, but the alteration of the boy’s previously flawless skull was far from the most predominant thing for them to disagree upon - simply something shallow to argue over while their respective rage simmered slow and deep; Gaster’s like water, boiling off into steam and eventually ceasing to be. Boli’s rage, though, bubbled like magma deep in the hollowness of his chest; the pressure kept building, ready to explode. He knew at some point something would have to give. 

Glancing over at where Gaster lay, still facedown in the mattress, Boli heaved a sigh. Did he even  _ grasp  _ why what had happened couldn’t simply slide by? It had been three days already, and it seemed as though the scientist wouldn’t - couldn’t? - even acknowledge how close to death Ilea had been - nor how wrong and foolish it seemed to continue containing her in the Underlab with the other subjects.

To make matters worse, Gaster seemed intent on trying to put things back to the way they had been that day at the CORE - which would be a less terrible thing if Boli didn’t realize how easy it would be to let it happen. At times, the Royal Scientist could act so innocent, as if he had never harmed a soul. The boy knew he had to clutch onto the memory of what had happened to Ilea - it was the one thing that he could use to hold Gaster at a distance. The one thread holding together his judgement.

Angel had been furious. When Gaster had escorted Ilea back to the quarters, still having to support her weight as the pair walked, Boli had watched over the security monitors as the fish monster paced and shouted, gesticulating wildly. She’d looked prepared to charge Gaster and attack him if not for Ilea’s proximity, but the conflict ended at last when Ilea stepped forward and instead rested her weight on Angel, kissing her on the side of her head.

Though Boli wasn’t particularly skilled at reading lips, it seemed obvious to him what she had said to the furious captain that had at last pacified her: “it’s okay. I’m okay.”

It seemed Ilea herself didn’t quite understand what had happened; to add to the difficulty of the situation, she was clearly withholding information from both of the skeletons - though she didn’t seem to realize it, she was a rather poor liar. 

_ Perhaps she’s told Shade more than she would tell me,  _ Boli realized, rolling over onto his back.  _ I should go talk to them as soon as I get a break from this crap. _

_...Not that I have any idea when that’ll be. We’ve been at this for days. I’m starting to think that this information Gaster’s looking for doesn’t actually exist.  _ Briefly, it occurred to Boli that it was a distinct possibility - someone with the scientist’s mental state was more than capable of dreaming up false memories out of sheer force of hope. Sighing at the thought, the boy reached a hand over his head to push the files he’d been reading off the bed, and they flapped as they fell.

At the sound of papers fluttering to the floor, Gaster lifted his skull to look over at Boli, quickly discerning his thoughtful expression. “What is going through your skull, Boli?” he wondered, hopeful. Could he be onto something?

Ignoring Gaster, the boy pulled over another file and flipped it open, sighing boredly. Hoping the scientist was still looking at him, he yawned hugely, baring his teeth in a show of drowsiness. 

“Oh, I forgot to bring us a refill on coffee, didn’t I,” Gaster realized, conjuring up a magical hand that brought his mug over to him, and he looked into the empty container. “Apologies, my hands were full. Would you like one, Boli?”

Letting his sockets drift a little with feigned sleepiness, he nodded his skull. “Please,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his hand against each of his eyes in turn. With that, the scientist’s weight vanished from the bed and he was gone from the room.

Moving swiftly now, the boy immediately grabbed a stack of folders at random, tucking them under his arm, bound for the Underlab elevator with a quick pace so that he could be on the trip down before Gaster even realized he had gone.

_ Worked like a charm,  _ Boli thought, a grin coming across his face.  _ Gee. Maybe he should’ve been more careful how well he taught me how to manipulate people.  _

  
  


When the lift arrived at the sublevel, Boli beelined to the monitors, glancing over them for Shade’s location. It would take much longer for him to locate the ghost if not for the odd distortion they caused on any camera they appeared on - they were in one of the normally empty holding cells, lying on their side, their soul chamber laid in front of them; they appeared to simply be staring at it, deep in thought. Or perhaps they were asleep? It was hard to tell.

Moving on into the prisoner’s ward, Boli crept lightly down the hall until he reached the room that Shade was outside of, knocking gently.

“Go away!” Shade’s voice, almost unrecognizable in its anger, shouted back; Boli shrank away, instantly feeling himself beginning to rattle. It must have been audible from the other side of the door, for moments later, the ghost uncertainly called out, “wait - Boli?”

Not answering, Boli glanced either way down the hall, contemplating which direction to take off in. Before he could move, though, the closed door creaked open a crack, revealing Shade’s dark, undulating figure, their frowning mouth aglow from the soul chamber they were attempting to hold within their form. The two monsters merely looked at each other for awhile, and it was only then that the skeleton realized Shade had not seen him since…

Reaching a hand up as if in attempt to cover the ugly fractures running across his face, Boli began to turn away from Shade. A moment later, though, he felt an oddly warm and smooth appendage reach forward to slide around his wrist, gently stopping him. It was strange - nothing like he had imagined the ghost’s form to feel like. He had expected it to feel cold and tingling, but instead, it was warmer and softer by far than a skeleton’s touch.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Shade hissed suddenly, their edges growing, mouth opening wider in a ferocious snarl. “You don’t do anything except  _ listen _ and he does this! I’ll rip his soul into little pieces-”

Taken aback, Boli lifted his free hand towards Shade, his palm facing them. “W-w-whoa, whoa,” he interrupted, “ _ Gaster  _ didn’t do this. I mean, he s-sorta did, but… Ugh.” Giving up on talking for a brief moment, the boy instead looked down to the black tendril still holding onto his wrist. “It’s complicated,” he concluded, slowly reaching down to touch Shade’s “arm,” running his fingertips up the appendage towards Shade’s body. Audibly, they shuddered.

“You feel that?” The boy gaped, quickly pulling his hand back. “S-sorry, I didn’t think-”

“Nah, don’t apologize,” Shade interrupted, calm as ever now, their eyes dropping to look at Boli’s hand now; seeming to concentrate rather hard, the tip of the tendril split off into five separate digits, now resembling a hand, their “fingers” interlocking with Boli’s.

Though he could feel heat spreading across his face, the boy simply flexed his grip against the ghost’s “hand.” Suddenly, Shade shifted their body back, dragging Boli along with them as they headed off into the room, swinging the door shut behind them.

“I took the doorknob off and turned it around,” Shade explained as Boli turned back towards the door to open it again, frowning. “Now it locks from the outside, so I can be alone whenever I want. Which is usually.”

Smirking slightly, Boli let the door shut again. “S-smart,” he chuckled, meandering over to the bed and laying down on his back, setting aside the folders in his hands. 

“I hear that a lot,” the ghost mumbled, glancing at Boli briefly before moving closer to the bed, sitting on the edge and stifling an agitated sound. “So… What  _ did  _ happen with Ilea? And your… your face. Is that… gonna heal?”

Flinching at the questions, Boli shrugged his shoulders. Gaster wouldn’t want him to say one true word to this “haunt,” he knew - and, truthfully, he was still unsure whether or not he could trust Shade. He had enough experience with self-interested monsters to err on the side of caution, yet… they seemed self-interested for the right reasons, which was more than he could say for certain others. Conflicted, the skeleton only shrugged, sitting up to look at the ghost.

“W-why’d you tell me to go away before you knew it was me?” Boli wondered timidly, attempting to dodge the questions entirely.

Tipping their head slightly, Shade turned their body enough to glance over the boy’s expression, seeming to think. “How ‘bout this, we’ll play a game. I’ll answer your question truthfully, but then I get to ask something back, and you can’t lie, either. We’ll trade off. Sound good?”

“I w-wouldn’t exactly call that a game.” Sighing, Boli found himself self-consciously avoiding Shade’s stare now. “How do I know  _ you _ won’t lie? You gotta know that Gaster has told me about twenty times not to believe a w-word that comes out of you.”

Shade’s glowing mouth shut altogether at these words, their eyes seeming to dim slightly as they turned away; though only for a moment before they gave themselves a small shake, uttering a small, bitter laugh. “Don’t’cha think that monsters who have absolutely nothing to lose have a certain integrity to them? Us lying don’t help anything - doesn’t free either of us from our  prisons. But if you wanna assume I’m dishonest for the hell of it, fine. You wouldn’t be the first to take one look at me and figure I’m a liar because I’m a ghost.”

Instantly feeling guilty, Boli shook his skull. “No, that’s not w-why! Gaster s-s-says-”

“Gaster says!” Shade burst out suddenly, a dark peal of giggling erupting from them. Shocked into silence, Boli wrung his hands in front of his sternum, simply waiting to see what the ghost would do next.

Turning ever-so-slightly, Shade cracked a wicked grin. “I came here fully knowing what Gaster had planned for me, y’know. Right down to the torture. Figured it was better than being useless until I die. I ain’t worth a whole lot any other way.” Wheezing a weak sound that was difficult to identify as a laugh, they leaned back into a laying position, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Guess that’s why I wanted you to go away - I thought you were Ilea.” 

Craning his neck to inspect Shade, Boli frowned in confusion. The ghost had never let on that he held any sort of dislike for her, so why…?

“I’ve been on Determination for weeks, and  _ nothing.  _ No scary hallucinations, no red vision - nothing. Can’t even fucking get experimented on right. Nevermind Angel - just looking at Ilea’s shiny new soul makes me feel  _ sick.  _ I did my time, got my share of torture when Gaster decided to stuff my soul into this form. It’s not…”

Shade trailed off for a moment, sighing as they rolled over to face Boli, studying his conflicted expression. “Not  _ fair _ . But… I dunno. That sounds stupid, huh? 

...Maybe it’s time to accept the fact I’m never gonna be more than...  _ this. _ ” Pausing to gesture at themselves in a sweeping motion, Shade’s mouth clenched shut for a moment, tears glimmering faintly in the corners of their eyes. “I’m not gonna help break the Barrier, or save monsters. I’m just gonna be miserable until I die. This is all I am.”

Finding himself unable to look at Shade, Boli shut his sockets, shaking his skull. “No, that’s  _ not _ true. Gaster and I are going to find out w-what happened to Ilea, and then w-we can recreate it. It’s just… taking a bit of time. We’re trying to look through old archives for more information on human souls, but.. it’s a total mess.”

Sighing, Shade’s form seemed to flatten a bit, becoming more oblong, as if losing the will to hold their shape. But they pushed on a moment later, managing to brush off the weighty thoughts of self-hated that didn’t want to be ignored. “Well, that’s that. There’s your answer. I’m gonna ask my question now. What happened to your face?”

Biting his tongue frustratedly, Boli shook his skull. “I… I don’t remember all of w-what happened… I did Ilea’s injection, and s-s-something horrible happened. Neither of us know  _ why _ exactly yet, but her s-soul, it just… s-started shutting down all of a sudden. It w-was rejecting the Determination. She w-would’ve died if she didn’t have healing magic to hold her together. I knew that she’d die, if I didn’t…”

Lifting his hand to his socket, Boli stifled a shudder.

“I remember this horrible pain in my skull, then I blacked out. According to Gaster, this s-sort of thing can happen to s-skeletons that overexert their magic to the point that it builds up in their skull and... ruptures. He s-said… It’s like his cracks - it’ll never heal. It’s not like a regular break - there’s no way to set the solid bone in my cheeks and fuse it back together. I’m gonna look like this… for the rest of my life.”

Shutting his sockets against tears that burned in them, he shook his skull. Burying his face in his palms, he choked back a sob. “Guess w-we both get to hate how w-we are forever, huh?” 

Boli could practically hear the grin in Shade’s voice when they spoke up moments later, unhesitating.“Well… hey.  _ I _ think you’re pretty great.”

Sockets opening, the boy looked over to Shade, his soul roiling with unfamiliar feelings - unfamiliar only in the sense that they weren’t directed towards Gaster. Yet somehow it felt… right.

“W-well… me, too,” he returned, tentatively reaching forward to brush a hand across Shade’s side, around where they might consider their shoulder to be, in a reassuring gesture. “But now… I need to get to w-why I really came. ...W-will you tell me everything Ilea has said to you about w-what happened to her?”

Expression turning serious in an instant, Shade’s glowing eyes met with his. “Wait, why would you think she’s told me? ...Why would she lie to either of you?”

Feeling uncertainty open up in his chest cavity immediately, Boli’s sockets widened. Fidgeting his hands nervously in his lap now, he shrugged his shoulders. “I… mean, she’s not a very good liar. I know she’s keeping s-something from Gaster and me - something that could be  _ vital.  _ And you’ve known her longer than I have... So if she’s s-said anything at all…”

For a moment, Shade’s expression merely went blank as they stared at the wall opposite them. Then, giving themselves a firm shake and seeming to pull themselves back to reality, they smiled grimly, light shining from between their lips as they parted.

“If he doesn’t find what he’s looking for in those files, he’ll find worse ways to get the information.” There was no doubt in Shade’s voice, and they levelled their eyes at Boli. “Manipulation. Threats. Torture. And so you’re here, scrambling to get ahead of him before that can happen, no matter what it might mean for you later. Yeah?”

Realizing only then that he hadn’t thought ahead to the consequences that might await him, Boli immediately found his breaths beginning to quicken. “No, no, no, he w-w-won’t, he w-wouldn’t....” he whispered to himself under his breath, his throat tightening against the words.  _ This is good, this is what I should be doing. And even if… even if he…  No, doesn’t matter. Better me than her. _

Struggling to calm his breaths, he finally managed to nod his skull towards Shade. At this, the ghost heaved a deep sigh, bobbing their head firmly before floating up from where they rested on the bed. “Alright. You and me, man. Let’s go find out the truth before things get ugly.”


	45. The One Who has Seen the Surface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy heck Friday seems to be coming around too soon lately

Despite the quiet and passive entrance Shade and Boli made into Ilea’s room, there was an unmistakable wariness in her eyes at their appearance. Since the change of her soul, she seemed somehow changed herself, her gentle eyes clouded over with a stoic, watchful fog. Her facade weakened briefly - only a tiny falter - at the sight of Boli, though it didn’t pass by unnoticed.

It occured to him that, at the moment, he didn’t know a monster in the underground who didn’t pity him. If only pity weren’t completely worthless.

Trying to brush off bitterness, Boli gently swung the door behind him so it hung only slightly ajar and turned back towards Ilea, searching for words. To his surprise, her expression suddenly turned reproachful and distant; instinctively, Boli looked towards Shade, instead waiting for them to lead the way through the metaphorical landmine field of this conversation.

“Ilea, I know you love Gaster,” Shade began in a rather unexpected direction, their voice very gentle, “and he loves you, too. But he needs progress more than he needs to sleep at night. I’m sorry to sound harsh, but I gotta be realistic with you here, Ilea. Boli came down here to warn us that Gaster is planning on…” they trailed off, hesitantly, silently praying that the scientist’s creation wouldn’t spring to his defense like a well-trained dog, ruining the lie that would win their way through Ilea’s defenses.

After a grim pause for effect, Shade at last made a noise similar to clearing one’s throat, sighing. “He’ll get the information out of you however he thinks he needs to, Ilea. Worst case, that means he goes after Angel. He’s not stupid; he’s seen you two together.”

Though it sent an uncomfortable twinge of guilt through their midsection to see all of Ilea’s composure instantly washed away by horror, Shade also had to admit their relief that the lie had worked so flawlessly. But then, suddenly, Ilea was sobbing into her paws, and anything pleasant they might have felt vanished in an instant. 

For a fraction of a second, they envied Gaster for his indifference.

Turning to Boli, expression grave, Shade lowly mumbled an apology for their lie. The boy’s response was to merely shake his skull, dismissing the exchange and stepping towards the chair Ilea sat in, gently placing his hand on her arm. 

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t w-worry. I s-said I’ll keep you safe, Ilea, and that hasn’t changed. I’m going to help you - and Angel, too. I just need you to  _ let  _ me.” Keeping his voice about as calm and steady as he could manage, he kept his sockets fixed levelly on where Ilea’s eyes lay hidden behind her paws.

Peering between her furry digits, Ilea gauged the gentle, searching expression on the boy’s face before her attention shifted over to Shade. Sniffling and seeming to gather her composure, she placed her paws neatly in her lap, looking squarely back to Boli. 

“I’m sorry, Boli, but you don’t understand. There are some things that Gaster  _ can’t  _ find out - things that are secrets he kept from himself,” Ilea explained, her voice bordering on impatience. “I can’t let you know. I made vows long ago and-”

“Ha!” Boli interrupted abruptly with a bitter laugh, his sockets darkening immediately. As Ilea shrank back a little in surprise, the boy let his smirk grow to a wan, almost demented grin. “Vows? Is that what you’re worried about right now?” 

No one spoke for several moments now, until, at last, Boli hesitantly turned to meet Shade’s stare; it wasn’t hard to tell by the O-shape of their mouth and watchful eyes that they were interested in where this conversation might be going. The obstacles now seemed clear to him, however; Ilea wasn’t only trying to protect herself and Angel, but Gaster, too. 

_ That’s ironic, _ Boli sighed inwardly, drawing a deep breath. “Uh, Shade. Could you give us a s-second?” His voice quavered slightly, as if expecting a sharp retaliation, but the dark ghost only tipped their head slightly, confused, before shrugging their shoulders. 

“‘Ight. I’m going back to my room,” they muttered, irritation at being sent away sparking just beneath their stoic voice. Turning with a speed that scattered shadows in their wake, they floated off through the door, but found themselves stopped by the soul chamber slamming up against the surface, soul-strings stopping them. After a brief moment of muffled, humiliated cursing, Shade maneuvered their soul prison through the ajar doorway and vanished down the hall.

After a few moments, Boli peered out into the hall to make sure the ghost had gone beyond hearing range, then turned back to Ilea, searching her intently. As far as he could conclude, she knew the scientist better than anyone else Boli had met, but still, he found himself reluctant to reveal just how much he, himself, knew. 

“What do you know about “vows?” Like the one he made to the late king to carry out his violent will? Like the one Portulaca made to carry truths to the grave? Anything Gaster doesn’t need to know, he  _ never _ will. I’m not just a pet at his heels. If I need to lie to him, I’ll lie to him. If I need to take a beating for any of you, fine. But I’m not going to watch you get hurt because you think I’m weak and can’t seem to see what I  _ really _ am.”

Boli now held Ilea’s stare, steadfast and fierce. At first, she simply looked stunned, but after several long moments, she sat up straighter, her fingertips gently touching to her face as she seemed to find his expression familiar. 

“Oh, Boli, you’re-! Portulaca, she’s…” Ilea began, but left her realization unfinished, hanging her head low. “Oh, Gaster, how could you?” she hissed quietly to herself in a moment of private fury before sitting up straight, her eyes suddenly cool and emotionless as she stared through the boy. 

“You knew her?” Boli wondered aloud, though the answer was already clear.

“Fine. I will tell you what happened so that you can save Gaster from his own,” Ilea paused before finding the last word and spitting it out. “ _ Cowardice. _ ” 

“After the injection, Chara came to me with a plea that I listen to them - that if I do as they say, we could free everyone in the Underground without ever seeing Gaster harm another soul.” Trailing off, Ilea let her head hang low, the resolve in her voice lapsing to melancholy. “I knew better than to think it was a mere hallucination. They were their words.”

“...They never could let go of the idea that  _ they  _ were  _ the _ Angel - the one who had seen the surface, who would set all monsters free. I wish that they had never been told that old legend - it cursed them with the idea that there was something that they  _ had  _ to do. Some end that they  _ had  _ to create. And it… it killed them, Boli.”

Tears welled up in the corners of Ilea’s eyes and she laughed weakly, shaking her head from side to side. “But Gaster’s kept their will alive - their Determination to do what they set out to do still lives on. And they wanted  _ me  _ to help see them to their end. And I… I said yes.” 

Drawing a steadying breath, Ilea avoided Boli’s intent stare. “They wanted me to go back to the Ruins, take their soul from where it’s buried, and absorb it. Then we would go through the Barrier. As they already tried once with… him.” Blinking away tears rapidly as her voice wavered and cracked, she touched her fingertips to her soul. 

“They said that I needed to be in dire condition to be taken out of the Underlab, and then we would run. It…” she hesitated, looking towards Boli as the lights in his sockets flickered out and he reached up to drive his fingertips into the corner of his socket where it had cracked. “...Was horrible. But when everything went dark, I… I had a dream.”

“It was about my family, the war… and Gaster. And I knew that I couldn’t die the way Asriel had - not yet. Part of me thought that I would finally be forgiven if I went with Chara - that repaying all of monsters with my sacrifice would somehow burn away all this-” she paused, gesturing at herself, her voice tightening with emotion before she finally managed, “ _ guilt. _ ”

“But then… I don’t know…!” Her voice suddenly turning to wonder, she looked up towards the ceiling. “I saw my father, and all I could feel was a burning desire to  _ stay.  _ With everything I had, I knew I had to refuse Chara, that I just needed to stay  _ here _ . I have never lived my own life, but suddenly, I knew with all my soul that I could not give up.”

Standing from her seat now, Ilea paced the length of the room once before halting at the far end, her back turned to the other monster. “Gaster always wanted me to forgive myself, to live my own life free of guilt, but…” Turning around now, she smiled a strained and somber smile down at Boli. “It was never about me forgiving myself. I… I needed to hear it from someone else.”

Giggling softly, suddenly bashful, Ilea fiddled with her velvety ear with one hand. “So, that’s not much help, is it? I imagine you wanted science, not how I felt, huh? That must all sound rather silly to you.”

Shaking his head helplessly, Boli uncurled his hands and stared down at his palms. It felt like he had all the pieces, yet they didn’t seem to make sense, or fit together. “No, no, that w-was very helpful, Ilea,” he managed to reassure her regardless, clenching his hands into fists as he realized they were beginning to tremble. 

“No, this makes s-sense - you  _ took _ the Determination, you made it yours! It’s never been about s-suffering, or dying, it’s about  _ living! _ ” He burst out suddenly, his words quickening into an ecstatic ramble. “This is great, this is  _ amazing,  _ this means no one has to get hurt, and everything will be fi-”

Trailing off as the logical part of his mind caught up with his emotions, he found himself having to choke back tears instead. “No, that… can’t be right. I… I need…” Closing his sockets to avoid seeing Ilea’s expression switch from euphoria to confusion, Boli shuffled backwards towards the door. “I need to talk w-w-with him. His hypothesis, his plans, they’re dead against w-w-what you just said. That can’t be right, he can’t be wrong, I, I, I can’t, I-”

Backing up again, Boli stifled a gasp as his spine bumped against the door behind him. Soul thumping profusely in his chest by now, he tried to reach for any thoughts that might help him float in the panic threatening to pull him down, yet within moments it was nearly impossible to even remind himself how irrational the fear overflowing in him really was.

Huffing a deep breath, he pulled the door behind him open and rushed off down the hall, walking until he reached the opposite end of the prisoner’s ward he’d entered through. Sinking down against the sealed exit, he fought for air.

It proved harder than he was accustomed to to slow down his gasps, his windpipe aching as is tightened against the uneven gusts of air he managed to pull in. If he hadn’t managed to sit down, he realized, the hallway would undoubtedly be spinning around him by now.

Though he wasn’t precisely sure when they appeared, Boli knew that at some point Shade had sat next to him, saying nothing, nor making any contact; simply existing in silence. A neutral, patient presence. It seemed to Boli in that moment that they promised things that he had never been offered before, even without speaking a single word. For nothing in exchange, no strings tightening around him, they remained.

For a fleeting moment all Boli could think to do was press his body closer, to run his hands down their shape and feel their warmth and softness once again. Instead, he merely leaned his skull lightly on them, silent.

He knew better than to think it was a mutual desire, anyhow.

In order to calm himself, Boli firmly pushed his learnings from Ilea into the back of his mind for the time being - and even then, it took more minutes than he could count to finally begin to feel sane once more. When he at last felt ready to speak once more, he uttered out a raspy “thank-you” to Shade; their only response was to nuzzle their head against his skull gently.

Closing his sockets, Boli briefly considered how easy it would be to fall asleep leaned against Shade in the pleasant coolness of the Underlab and just enough warmth coming off the ghost to be soothing. Knowing it wasn’t an option, however, the boy quickly forced himself to sit up straight.

“I need to go back s-soon,” he sighed, avoiding looking in Shade’s direction as they floated up from their seat on the floor. Following suit, Boli pushed himself to his feet. Rather than responding verbally, the ghost suddenly formed an appendage that reached inside their own form, pulling out the folder that Boli had brought and offering it to him.

“Uh… ew? He mumbled, not reaching out to take the papers until after he had inspected it thoroughly for any sort of residue.

Laughing almost musically, Shade gave themselves a shake. “Dude, it’s not like I  _ have  _ insides or anything,” they jested, opening their mouth wide enough to show the soul chamber within them, afloat in what appeared to be complete nothingness. “See?”

Peering in, Boli found himself strangely tempted to reach a hand through their lips, though it quickly occurred to him that it would be not only terribly impolite but also incredibly odd. “Huh. W-What  _ are  _ you made of, exactly?” Innocent curiosity took over the boy’s voice and he gently prodded at the ghost’s midsection, trying to identify their composition. 

Falling silent for quite some time, Shade’s attention focused on Boli’s hand, small tendrils emerging from their body to tangle around his fingers, oddly fluid in their movements. “Ask Gaster,” was all they said in the end, pulling away at last and breaking contact altogether. 

Hesitating awkwardly, wordlessly, Boli couldn’t help but wonder if there was something that he was supposed to do before leaving. It seemed to him the moments he had shared with the spectre today had carried a certain weight of closeness - intimacy, even. 

“You’d better get going,” Shade sighed, seeming unaware of Boli’s searching eyes and large, bright pupils. 

Deciding that he had misread their actions at every turn immediately, the boy nodded his skull and hurried off down the hall, leaving the phantom behind without another word. 

Once he had gone, Shade drew in a deep breath, forming an arm that rested gently against where Boli’s hand had on their front minutes before. “Man, I am so fucked,” they muttered to themselves, sinking slowly to the floor where the tile was still warm from the skeleton’s shape.

  
  



	46. The Rift

Once Boli had at last calmed and parted ways with Shade for the day, the boy found himself struggling to shake off the feelings that had sprung up. There was no place for them in Gaster’s presence, after all - and, truthfully, Boli knew he couldn’t allow himself to think too deeply about what his creator might do if he did discover a bond forming. He had only just managed to calm down - such ponderings would only send him back into a frenzy, he knew.

Though, Boli realized with a sinking feeling, if his affections for the ghost continued on their current trajectory, it would be impossible to avoid Gaster’s finding out. He knew there was no hiding from the Royal Scientist. 

Now wasn’t the time to worry about his own fickle feelings; he still had yet to decide what to tell Gaster based off what Ilea had shared with him - if anything. It would be a delicate process no matter how he approached it. 

If only he could feel even remotely confident that he was up to the task. All Boli’s usual confidence to confront and argue with Gaster seemed only a fantasy now that there was so much at stake. Heaving a sigh and forcefully prying his thoughts away from the topic, he instead passed the time in the elevator by looking through the folder in his hands. Nothing useful - surprise, surprise. 

Dragging his feet and dawdling across the lab, Boli found himself standing outside the bedroom door listening for any sign that his disappearing act had put the other skeleton in a dangerous mood, but all he could hear was the occasional rustling of paper as Gaster went through them. Finally scraping together his courage, Boli pushed into the room and - attempting to appear as nonchalant as possible - sat on the bed next to Gaster.

Though he’d expected to be scolded or ignored completely, the boy was instead caught off-guard as the scientist reached over and effortlessly pulled him close, tucking his arm around the boy’s shoulders - all without looking up from his file. Realizing the intentness in his expression, pupils fixed on the papers in his lap, Boli quickly leaned down to read them as well.

“ _ Case study: The six human SOUL traits, _ ” the header read.

“Is this w-what you were looking for?” Boli wondered aloud, leaning a bit closer to the pages. At the very least, it looked more promising than anything they’d dug up so far.

“No,” Gaster sighed, sweeping aside a few stray sheets to create enough space on the bed to spread out the contents of the folder in his hand. “However, I do not remember much of this. It may prove useful.” Cupping his chin thoughtfully with one hand, he nodded his skull.

“Six traits: kindness, patience, bravery, perseverance, integrity, and justice - each represented by a unique SOUL color, as you can see,” he rumbled, finding it difficult to pull his attention away from the sheet displaying the soul of bravery.

Glancing over the array of colored photographs, Boli frowned pensively. “But that’s not right. There’s also s-supposed to be a red trait. One is missing.”

“My thoughts precisely,” agreed Gaster, checking both sides of each sheet before continuing. “I have a theory. When I biopsied Chara’s soul all those months ago, I found it had an abnormally high concentration of Determination. I believe, perhaps, their soul’s divergent color may point to the possibility that their soul was, in fact, a mutation in and of itself - not unlike the one which Ilea underwent.”

“...That said, I still have yet to find the files detailing soul mutation. I  _ know  _ there are other cases of this occurring in humans. However, this may be the first monster soul mutation in recorded history. It could potentially be the most groundbreaking discovery monsterkind has made in this century; if only we could decode the cause! If this mutation can be activated at will and passed down, it could possibly usher in a new, superior race of monsterkind!”

Unexpectedly feeling a twinge of anxiety, Boli glanced sidelong at Gaster. Though he tried to form words for his immediate thought - “Isn’t that getting a little ahead of yourself?” - he never managed to speak. Breaking the Barrier was supposed to be their goal, but Gaster’s unspoken words now reminded Boli of the desire for vengeance burning in so many monster’s souls and minds.

Saying nothing in the end, Boli decisively pushed his earlier conversation with Ilea into the back of his mind. Gaster was foraging a path on his own, and the boy allowed himself to be pulled along behind for the time being.

“Let’s keep looking, then.” Putting aside the folder that he had brought to the Underlab, Boli reached for an unopened file. Nodding, Gaster neatly gathered the trait-related papers and set them apart from the rest.

In the end, Boli remained tucked close to Gaster, sitting pressed against his side as they searched into the night; before long, they each lost track of time, falling into a natural silence and closeness as the hours and pots of coffee drained away.

As the corridor beyond the bedroom went dark for the night, Gaster rose to his feet without a word to retrieve another box filled with files, his face creased with seriousness and focus. As he began to pull out a thick stack of papers, Boli flopped over onto his side, sighing irritably.

“Maybe this is a dumb question, but do you think there might be somebody else in the underground who knows something about this DT mutation nonsense?” His voice broke the silence for the first time in hours and he found he cringed at the sound of it. Clearing his throat and trying his best to lower the pitch of his voice, he went on.

“I know the other royal s-scientists didn’t make it, but there’s gotta be other monsters from before the w-war who know all sorts of things, right?” 

Placing the folders in his hands down, Gaster’s eyes passed over Boli coldly, his emotions fully withdrawn back into their shell after a long evening of study. “Regarding something this specific, I would not have high hopes on the matter. However, I suppose there is Gerson-”

“Gerson? Who’s Gerson?”

Sighing impatiently at the interruption, though it was innocent enough in its childlike curiosity, Gaster took a long sip from his mug, fogging up his glasses with the steam off the hot liquid. “He is a historian. Not quite up to Portulaca’s calibre, naturally, but a historian nonetheless. Old as God, I might add, but with many years left considering his species - tortoise monsters are incredibly long-lived.”

Waiting to be certain Gaster was done speaking this time, Boli nodded ponderously before trying to talk. “Maybe w-we could go talk to him,” he suggested, stifling a yawn which tried to part his jaw before sheepishly adding, “tomorrow.”

“Unnecessary.” Gaster’s mouth curved into a grimace and he shook his skull. “We have everything we need here.”

Trying his best to push down irritation so that it didn’t show in his tone, Boli muttered, “yeah, okay, but  _ where _ ?” Biting down on his tongue, he found he immediately regretted allowing the words to escape. Fiddling nervously with the string hanging out of his hoodie, he stared down into his lap.

Digging deep for patience - Boli seemed to be having a difficult enough day without his usual aggressions thrown into the mix - the scientist massaged his temples. Whether it was the long hours of staring at papers, an excess of caffeine, or the constant resistance and complaints from his creation,  _ something  _ was giving him a horrendous skull-ache.

Perhaps a combination of all three. Shaking his head at the thought, Gaster stood up from the bed, heading over to the to-read pile to tidy it up. “You are growing restless with this task, I presume?” He sighed at last, turning to scrutinize Boli. Trying not to dwell on the way the boy shrank away from the question, he instead tried to monitor his tone more closely as he went on.

“Not that there is anything wrong with that. It is very droll, and better suited to those with immense patience for such things.” Falling silent for a moment, Gaster crossed the room to perch on the foot of the bed, his back to Boli. “I am better suited to this. Would you like something else to do?”

Surprised by the solid wave of silence that came off Boli after the question, Gaster peered over his shoulder, unable to keep concern off his face. Noting the way the boy immediately averted his eyes to look elsewhere, the scientist hesitantly reached a hand out towards Boli, though genuinely uncertain whether he would flinch away or move closer. After a rather long moment of hesitation, the small skeleton shifted closer, closing the distance between them just enough to take Gaster’s hand and let it rest in his lap between both of his.

“I had it in my plans to visit Asgore as soon as I get a moment for the purpose of discussing a few things about Chara. You seemed to get on quite well with him - would you like to go in my stead?” Hesitating, Gaster circled his thumb around the back of the boy’s hand, looking down at their joined hands. “You deserve to get out of the Lab now and again, as well.”

For a few moments, Boli only stared down into his lap, fidgeting with Gaster’s hand, spreading his fingers and then pushing them back together, then circling his fingers around the neat circular hole in his palm. “You mean, w-without you? Alone?” He ventured at last, though he still didn’t look up. “You’ve never let me do that.”

“ _ Let  _ you?” Gaster echoed, leaning his skull down a little in attempt to meet the boy’s gaze. “Boli, you are not a prisoner here. All I ask is that you let me know before you leave. You are a very clever and capable young skeleton; I harbour no intentions to keep you trapped here. That would only cause us both unhappiness, I believe.”

Blinking, shocked, the boy’s grip tightened on Gaster’s hand rather tightly. “W-wait, s-so, you’re saying I can go out? W-Whenever I w-want?”

Trying to disguise his racing thoughts as the delicate balancing act of this conversation suddenly dawned upon him, Gaster drew a deep breath. “I… never intended to let on that you must stay with me at all times. When you were very young, I was unsure if you would be safe on your own, but I have been proven wrong several times over on that account, so…”

Closing his sockets, Gaster silently hoped that this would at least somewhat alleviate the hostility between them. “Of course you are free to come and go. Within reason, of course - you still have your duties as my assistant to attend to, after all. And, admittedly, I… I prefer these dusty halls when you are in them.”

Glancing towards Boli, he attempted to discern the emotions there, but it appeared the boy was still processing, his eyes bordering on vacant. Exhausted, even.

“No… No, I know w-why you’re really saying that,” Boli sighed suddenly, resigned. Slowly, he pushed Gaster’s hand out of his lap so that he could curl his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them as he stared desolately into the distance. “You’re just trying to trick me into trusting you again.”

Feeling the lights in his sockets fade out and the faint smile on his face vanish, Gaster leaned his weight forward, closer to Boli, trying to draw his attention back in. “Am I?”

“Yeah.” Boli instead placed his forehead on his knees so that there was no possible way for the scientist to force him into eye contact. “It’s not going to work. Not this time.”

“I… see.” Knowing a denial would likely only anger the other skeleton, Gaster decided against even attempting - though, part of him wanted Boli to know his aim had been less in the direction of trust and more towards affection. Whether that would be considered better or worse was a complexity completely lost on him, however.

Oddly enough, the rejection stung more than enough to catch him off guard. Taking a moment to readjust, he decided to circle the hurt he felt as  much as possible and continue towards his destination.

“Regardless of my intentions, my request stands. I would like you to learn a little bit about Chara, if at all possible. Specifically, whether or not their soul had a different trait at any point that Asgore is aware of. If you can do so subtly, that is.”

“So. That’s a  _ direct order _ , yeah?” The boy mumbled into his knees a moment later, voice muffled, before he looked up, his sockets full of a detached darkness that shocked Gaster. “Just so that we understand each other.” 

Regret twisted agonizingly in Gaster’s abdominal cavity and he stood from the bed, wrapping his hands around his sternum. Just how deeply had the past few days scarred this boy? The tip of the iceberg was only just breaching the water, it seemed. 

“I thought that you had  _ wanted  _ to see Asgore.”

“Yeah, that was before you fucked up my face,” Boli hissed between his teeth, lifting his skull higher, glaring belligerently at the back of Gaster’s skull.

Turning around now, the scientist let his hands drop away from his sternum, hiding the nervous gesture. “It is not as if I cracked your skull with my own hands, Boli. Is that what you would prefer to tell him?”

“The point is you  _ would!”  _ The boy shouted, voice cracking under the weight of his anger. Looking about ready to lapse into tears now, he buried his face into his hands.

Gaster’s only response was a faint “hm,” and he made his way across to the laundry hamper, unbuttoning his shirt from top to bottom and slipping it off, tossing it onto the pile of clothes in front of him. He could feel Boli’s eyes on him once more, but ignored it and finished his task of undressing, only then returning to the bed.

“W-What are you doing?” Boli gaped, pushing himself backwards on the bed until he had reached the edge farthest from Gaster. 

Shrugging, Gaster let his weight fall into his spot on the mattress, pulling the first blanket he found over himself. “Guess,” he quipped at last, now pulling the blanket clear over his skull to block out the light overhead. “Goodnight, Boli.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay _so_ I wrote myself into a corner with something I don't want to write At All for next week, so I'll probably miss the update again. [Insert an apology here.]


	47. The Bridge

Boli awoke in the dark, disoriented, unsure of how long he had been asleep or even what had startled him to consciousness - he scarcely remembered falling asleep after getting up to shut off the light. When he sat upright, though, he immediately saw the cause of his sudden wakefulness. 

Across the room, Gaster was cursing viciously under his breath - something that Boli very rarely heard him do - as he rapidly pulled papers off of the work desk, flapping a fan of them through the air to dry them.

Squinting, the boy managed to make out the shape of a tipped-over glass on the desk only a few moments before the stench of spilled alcohol hit him. Still unsteady from sleep and unthinking, Boli pushed himself to his feet to hurry over and gather up the papers Gaster hadn’t gotten to yet and fanning them gently.

After a heavy, irritated sigh directed at himself, Gaster turned towards Boli, dipping his skull apologetically. “I did not mean to wake you. My apologies.” Turning back to the desk now, he picked up the overturned glass and scooped the ice cubes scattered across the desk back into the cup. “I must have dozed off and knocked that over.”

Wrinkling his nose, Boli wiped both his hands on his shirt in turn, but the reek of whiskey had soaked into the papers irrevocably. “Crap happens. Hope this wasn’t anything important.” Surprised by the other skeleton’s grave expression and his silence, the boy glanced to the papers in his hands. Before he could quite work out what he was looking at through the smudges, though, Gaster had reached over to snatch away the sheets.

“Nevermind this! It is merely a side project,” he spoke far too quickly to be nonchalant, looking around the bedroom as if searching for somewhere to stash away the “project.” 

Knowing it took something rather significant to crumble Gaster’s facade this way, Boli gritted his teeth frustratedly. What was in the scientist’s plans this time that would soon come back to blindside him? Not this time, he decided.

Jumping forward swiftly like a snake striking, Boli snatched back the papers and darted away several paces, ready to make a dash for the door. Though, he soon realized the other skeleton was making no attempt to pursue him, but instead, was standing with his face in his palm, shaking his skull back and forth.

Stumbling a little, Gaster leaned his tailbone back on the work desk, his skull still in his hands - it occurred to Boli only then that he’d probably been on his dozenth drink.

Face contorting with disgust, Boli leered briefly at him before looking at his newly-won data. It still didn’t make much sense; long lines of magical compounds, none of which he recognized immediately, took up the page at the top of the stack he held. 

Flipping to the next sheet, he squinted at what was now a nearly beyond-recognition anatomical diagram of a skeleton. Realizing suddenly that what he was currently inspecting very closely was the pelvic region of a skeleton woman, Boli quickly let his hands drop to his sides, trying to ignore the uncomfortable burn of nausea in his soul and turning his attention on Gaster.

“W-What is all this?” Boli ventured at last, cringing at his shaking voice. “I don’t unders-stand, and I always understand all your w-work, s-so what…?”

Massaging his temples in slow circular motions, Gaster stepped away from the table, just close enough to take back the papers, slowly leafing through them. Once he found the front page - all things considered, he supposed it was the least badly damaged - he returned the stack of papers to Boli. Then he made his way to the foot of the bed and sat, holding his skull once again.

“Gender reassignment?” Boli read aloud, slowly, glancing up at Gaster briefly. “S-synthetic testosterone? S-surgery…? Gaster, I don’t understand-” Cautiously, reproachful, he looked again to the scientist. “Is this… for  _ me? _ ” 

Trying to fix his attention on Boli while the room spun around him, Gaster nodded once. “You do not think I have been blind to your misery, do you, Boli? I know it does not all stem from that disconnect - Gods know! - But if I could at all lessen it… If that is something you desire, I…”

Falling silent, stifling a groan deep in his windpipe, Gaster rubbed his palm against his face a few times. Though he didn’t quite remember it happening, it was clear to him he’d unintentionally had far too much to drink. Dropping his hand, he looked across the room to where Boli still stood, seeming paralyzed.

Caught off guard by the sight of tears welling up in the boy’s sockets, vibrant green in the dark, Gaster grimaced, looking down into his lap. “I am sorry. I should have discussed these pursuits with you before I even considered-”

Stopping abruptly, Gaster found himself flinching as if expecting to be struck as Boli suddenly crossed the room in one bound, throwing his arms around the scientist. “Yes, Gaster, of course! I mean, I didn’t think… Didn’t know- I thought I w-was…” he wept the words into the fabric of the scientist’s shirt, overcome. 

At last, sniffling, Boli managed, “guess it never occurred to me you could fix me.” Leaning back now, he gazed into the scientist’s sockets briefly, then leaned forward so that their foreheads touched together. “But I should have known you’d find a w-way for me.”

Pushing down guilt - some error in the cloning process placed the fault with him, after all - Gaster shut his sockets. “Do you recall? You blamed me, my “stupid machine,” for the way that you are. It is not merely my responsibility, but my absolute pleasure to bring you a solution, M.V Boli.” 

Words tripping slightly down their long-winded path, Gaster cleared his throat. Briefly he remembered Boli’s snapped words from several weeks ago - “Why do you have to talk like that?” - and shook his skull. He could spend hours finding a verbose and flourishing way to say the words in his mouth now, but it would be time wasted. What mattered was whether or not he said them at this moment.

“I have realized these past few days that I want you to be…  _ happy, _ ” Gaster began, then stifled a low groan. “I sound like a fool - my words contradict my actions at every turn. Yet… I want to make you happy, Boli. Instead I have made you wish you hadn’t been made. I have to undo that… have to…”

Somewhere unnoticed in the back of Boli’s mind, a thread unraveled, relinquishing him back to the current. Yet he floated blissfully in the waves, too rapt to realize he was in over his skull once again - just like that, in mere moments. Gingerly, tentatively, he brought his weight forward, kneeling on the bed with his knees on either side of Gaster, though he hovered above him, not quite touching.

“You talk a lot, Gaster,” Boli began in a gentle, teasing tone, “but you’re famous for getting results. S-so, what are you gonna do on that front right now?”

Ducking his skull almost shyly, Gaster met the boy’s stare after a moment. “Are you  _ flirting  _ with me, Boli? How inappropriate. I’m  _ terribly _ drunk.” 

“I can tell,” the boy breathed quietly against the side of Gaster’s skull, stifling a quiet laugh. “You kinda reek. I think you dumped some liquor on yourself, actually.”

Part of Gaster knew this was the wrong time, wrong place, wrong state of mind for him to reciprocate any of the boy’s affections. But it had been so long and he didn’t know if there would be even one more chance for it. With this in mind, he laid a gentle hand on Boli’s tailbone to pull him closer, burying his face into the boy’s shoulder. 

Breathing in the smell of apples clinging to the boy’s clothes, Gaster sighed contently. Though, Boli was right - the smell of whiskey nearly overpowered it. Before the scientist could begin to revel in the warmth coming off Boli, he pulled back, standing and putting the papers still in his hand back into their place on the work desk. 

When he turned back, a mischievous grin, wider than Gaster had seen in weeks, was spread across Boli’s face. “Obvious s-solution. You don’t need those clothes, do you?” He ventured nonchalantly, stepping a pace closer. “You’re coming back to bed anyways, right?”

Laughing weakly, uneasily, Gaster fought against the unease clawing its way up and down his spine. “I’ll see how I feel after a glass of water, hmm?” he suggested, avoiding Boli’s hungry stare. In all their time together, the scientist had never thought the boy might make _ him  _ feel like prey. It was almost remarkable how quickly he had switched gears.

Before Gaster could rise on his own accord, the boy had suddenly vanished out into the hallway. Left alone to his thoughts, the scientist immediately buried his face back into his palms.  _ Oh gods, gods, gods,  _ he lamented to himself viciously. Perhaps the best course of action here would be to pretend to be unconscious by the time the boy returned?  Turning him down wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do in essence, yet…

_ I don’t particularly want to do that.  _ Groaning, Gaster looked over to the capped bottle on his work desk. Standing a bit unsteadily, he picked it up to inspect the trickle leftover from his night. Shaking his head, he set it back down, turning towards the door in time to see Boli walking back in, glass of water in hand. Smiling, though a little blearily, he took the glass from the boy and took a few slow sips.

“Thank-you,” Gaster sighed at last, perching back at the foot of the bed and staring into the dimness at the other end of the room. Aware of the boy watching him as if in anticipation, he pretended to be very fascinated with the condensation forming on his glass. Quite quickly, though, he found he couldn’t tolerate the tension that he felt being under the boy’s stare. 

“Is there something you would like to ask me, Boli?” He nearly growled the words, although it wasn’t exactly the tone he had intended.

“Don’t play dumb, G’, you know what I want,” the boy sighed lightly in response, climbing onto the bed and positioning himself behind Gaster, draping his arms around the other skeleton’s shoulders. 

“I am starting to think  _ you  _ are the one who has had too much to drink.” Though he didn’t shrug the boy off, Gaster knew the tension in his shoulders was obvious. More for a distraction than anything now, he took another drink of water, closing his sockets. “That aside, enlighten me - what  _ specifically  _ do you want, Boli?”

Cringing at his own words, Gaster shook his skull. His intention had not been to throw fuel directly onto the fire, and yet… The boy leaned his weight against him now, mouth against the side of his skull, breathing hotly against his ear. 

“Where do I  _ start _ ?” Boli whispered after only a brief pause, then stifled a chuckle. “Well, I really  _ do  _ want you to take off those clothes - they reek.”

“And then?” Gaster prompted, though he was already reaching for the collar of his shirt, pulling it over his skull once Boli leaned back to give him room to do so. Tossing the shirt aimlessly across the room, he grimaced as the boy quickly returned to his original position, lounging against Gaster’s now-bare spine. 

Staring straight ahead, Gaster tugged the waist of his pants lower on his hipbones, revealing the curved ridges of his ilium gleaming white in the dark. Moments later, he felt Boli’s hands on the backs of his, trying to direct him to push the fabric further down. With no small amount of hesitation, he pulled them past the heads of his femurs, then let the fabric drop loosely around his ankles on the floor.

Kicking them off entirely, the scientist craned his neck slightly to make eye contact with Boli, expectant. “Well?” he pressed again, frowning as, rather than responding, Boli reached over to take the glass from Gaster’s hand and set it aside on the bedside table. Frowning in its direction, he mumbled, “I was not done with that,” under his breath.

“Gaster?” Boli spoke up suddenly, quite seriously, causing the scientist to turn towards him with anxious inquisitiveness. 

“Yes?” Tipping his skull, Gaster turned on the bed to inspect Boli, silently reading the strange mixture of anxiety and determination set in the boy’s smirk. 

“I want to share souls.”

Facing ahead quickly once more, Gaster stared down into his lap, his attention inevitably focusing on the tendril that coiled up loosely in his pelvic cavity, almost as if he had spent long enough wishing it would disappear that it instinctively retracted.  _ Saying no is simple,  _ he told himself silently, his windpipe tight with a hundred things he couldn’t quite identify at once.  _ Just say it. It is only one word - a simple, one-syllable word. Say it. Say it! _

After his mouth had flapped open and shut noiselessly a few times, he instead shook his head, closing his sockets. “I can’t,”  he managed at last, stiffening as Boli moved close behind him once more, this time wrapping his arms around his ribcage.

“Why not?” the boy breathed the question against Gaster’s neck, following up the question by pressing his mouth against the other skeleton’s clavicle a handful of times. “I’m not scared of you hurting me.”

Semi-frozen, Gaster unfolded his hands, looking at them for a few moments. 

“I kinda  _ w-want  _ you to.”

The words struck like a blow to the sternum and he shook his skull hard enough that a rattling noise filled the room briefly before standing from the bed, swaying slightly as the room spun around him from the abrupt movement. “I  _ just  _ said that my only aim is to make you happy, and now this?” The scientist blurted, gesticulating fiercely towards Boli. 

“I don’t understand you! I don’t understand why you find anything alluring in -  _ this! _ ” Sweeping a motion at himself now, he turned on his heel neatly to begin pacing the room. “I strike you, I use you, manipulate and lie - and yet! Why these advances, Boli? And if your response is “I love you,” I will-” trailing off, clenching his fist in front of him, Gaster drew a heavy breath. 

Undaunted, Boli gave his shoulders a nonchalant shrug. “Like I said at the CORE, G’. Feels good. Don’t know what else to tell you.”

“And you think this will feel “good,” hm?” The scientist hissed between his teeth, stepping back towards the bed. 

Lifting his skull slightly, Boli shifted towards the foot of the bed slightly, baring his pointed teeth in a grin. “You must be  _ awfully  _ tempted to prove me wrong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright _so_ the thing is given Everything, though this is in fact the night that G' and Boli do the do, I?? Put myself into a situation where **I** can't write it comfortably **so I have to skip the scene.** Someday in the distant future it might show up with the other redacted chapter(s), but I wasn't really up for procrastinating for a month before updating with some mediocre smut... Instead I'mma just proceed with the plot. Sorry.


	48. Subterfuge, Subverted

Awoken by instinct before “dawn,” before the Lab lights could spring to life automatically, Gaster sat up and ventured a glance at Boli. As expected, he was splayed out comfortably, fast asleep - even snoring, the scientist noted with a faint smirk. And, although it had not been a particularly long sleep, Gaster supposed he’d rested soundly enough himself - dreamlessly, at least.

Moving stealthily so as to not disturb the boy, Gaster ventured into the bathroom, turning on the light and squinting against the pain that flared up in his skull in response. Grimacing, he inspected his bare figure in the mirror through half-shut sockets. Scattered here and there across his ribcage were splatters of dried up soul aura - mostly his own, but he supposed Boli looked similar, though in an opposite ratio. 

The tangy odor of apples and bittersweetness of licorice still lingered around him, quietly tormenting him with the memories. Unable to look at himself any longer, Gaster moved onto the shower, turning the water on low and quiet, retrieving the showerhead and watching expressionlessly as the residual aura dissipated within moments. 

_ Such is the nature of magic,  _ Gaster pondered to himself.  _ Temporary, easily washed away by tides and time. It is so easy to erase us from existence… _

_ *You’re having pretty dismal thoughts. Shouldn’t you be happier? _

Brushing away the voice, Gaster drew his soul from his chest cavity and turned it in his hand once, watching the mixture of purple and green discharge vanish until no remainder of the deed clung to him. Then, turning off the water, he silently went about getting dressed for the day, keeping an eye on Boli to make sure he never stirred.

Preparing an early breakfast for the prisoner’s down below - porridge, as usual - only took a few minutes, yet still long enough that Gaster found himself feeling rather paranoid that he wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of Boli and make it to the Underlab before he woke up.

Since he’d awoken, for reasons beyond Gaster’s grasp, he had only one desire on his mind - only one monster he felt a pressing urge to speak to, and it wasn’t the one he’d clumsily shared souls with the night before.

_ This is ridiculous. What exactly do you suppose they will have to say?  _ Gaster berated himself, holding his skull in both hands. After pulling himself away from his spot at the hotplate for long enough to make himself a mug of coffee, he soon departed for the Underlab with the meal tray in one hand and coffee in the other.

As the lift arrived at the bottom, the lights turned on as if welcoming him, and he headed over to the terminal, glancing over the screens briefly to locate Shade. Instead, though, the first thing he noticed - with an inexplicable feeling of reproachfulness and dread - was that Ilea and Angel were awakening from the same bed, blinking in the sudden brightness.

It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed the two monster’s closeness, of course, yet it sent an odd jolt through him whenever the topic crossed his mind. Pausing, pushing down a groan, Gaster took a sip of his coffee.

This was not the ideal setting to develop a relationship. How could Ilea be certain Angel’s emotions had any legitimacy? For all either of them knew, the other was merely grasping at straws in their final months, trying to find meaning before the end… This was no place for love. 

Clenching his jaw, Gaster instinctively turned away from the monitors as Angel leaned forward to rest her chin on Ilea’s shoulder, imposing an embrace on the half-asleep goat monster. Such actions were strange to see on Angel for all the vulnerability they revealed. To observe felt nothing but strange and wrong.

Brushing off the thoughts and replacing them with his usual brusque air, he headed briskly into the holding ward, rapping lightly on the door to Ilea and Angel’s room.

“Boli?” Ilea chirruped in a rather sing-song tone from behind the door, opening it with a warm expression, her dark eyes still sleepy and placid. Seeing Gaster instead, though, a faint terror lit up behind her gaze and she rearranged the door so that her body blocked Gaster’s line of sight inside.

“Oh… Gaster. You’re early,” she giggled, but it was a transparent veil for the fear boiling just beneath. Had he come here to…?

Though noticing the immediate change in her, finding himself oblivious to the precise cause of Ilea’s fear, Gaster affixed her with a puzzled frown. “I suppose I do not normally knock, but I am not sure that justifies you looking at me that way,” he spoke with a cautious note of humor, though his preoccupied hands wanted nothing more than to fidget anxiously. “Is there a problem?”

“O-oh, it’s just…” Ilea stammered, trying to keep up a rapidly crumbling facade. “Oh, Gaster, please do not harm her!” Suddenly overflowing with emotion, she blubbered the words as she gripped onto the scientist’s shirt with both paws. “You mustn't harm her - it has nothing to do with her! I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Er…” Genuinely at a loss for words, Gaster conjured up a magical hand to hold his coffee so that he had a free hand to lightly pat Ilea’s shoulder. After a moment of silence, watching her expression turn to faint confusion, he tipped his head slightly, forcing himself to sound gentle when he spoke. “I am just bringing your breakfast, Ilea. Are you having hallucinations?”

“Oh, but… Shade…” Though barely audible at first, Ilea quickly cleared her throat and continued more clearly. “Shade was  _ so _ certain that you would come here to hurt Angel because you thought I was keeping something from you. I never  _ can  _ know what you’ll do anymore, Gaster - you understand, don’t you?”

_ *That hurt.  _

Avoiding Ilea’s gaze, looking for a distraction, Gaster nudged the door behind Ilea open fully with his foot, enough to reveal Angel standing previously out of his sight, poised to attack. Meeting the former captain’s glare, Gaster found a thousand questions buzzing like a beehive in his skull, though they refused to line up into anything coherent.

Clearing his throat, dislodging the lump forming in his windpipe, Gaster curtly extended the tray to Ilea. “Your breakfast,” he offered, flatly. After a brief pause - and even then, with hesitant and jumpy movements - Ilea took two bowls, handing one back to Angel without fully turning her back on the skeleton.

A weighty silence settled over the trio for a brief moment before Gaster spoke up, his skull suddenly feeling too heavy to hold up; he stared at the tile in front of his feet. “Shade knows me well, but not everything they say carries merit.” Surprised by the exhaustion in his own voice, he shook his skull and looked up to Ilea again.

Fighting the temptation to reach forward and caress her face - knowing she would only flinch in anticipation of being struck - he instead took a step back and inclined his head to her. “Yet their words have some truth. Without Boli to keep me on track, I believe your fears may have come true.”

A faint growl called Gaster’s attention back to Angel and he couldn’t help feeling taken aback at the suspicion plain on her face. “You’re not telling us that puny kid keeps a monster like  _ you  _ in line?” she sneered, shaking her head.

There were two answers to the rhetorical question, he realized: to mention Boli’s magical enhancement and the fact he had been created to kill the scientist, or to bring up his so-called “love.” Which held more sway over Gaster at this point? He found no simple response. Instead, he took his coffee back from the magical hand he’d delegated it to and stared into the mug.

“I will leave you two be,” he announced, turning away from them both. Before he could rush away on his faintly unsteady legs, however, he found strange words in a strange tone escaping him. “You have to cherish her, okay, Angel?”

Freezing and biting down on his tongue, Gaster’s eyes darted around the hallway, searching for someone who was not there. Soul thumping, he forced himself to continue down the hall without a backwards glance.  Though muted, clearly intended to be private, he still caught Angel’s mutter of “...the hell’s up with him?” on the edge of his hearing.

Stopping outside of Shade’s room, Gaster felt a forceful tremor shake him, rattling the tension of the encounter out of his frame. Even Angel had noticed the strangeness of his behaviour - if he was going to speak with Shade, he would have to get himself under control. But he couldn’t seem to find the energy. Letting his skull rest on the door with a  _ thunk,  _ he ineffectually rattled the doorknob. 

_ *You didn’t come down here to hide everything and accomplish nothing, anyways. _

Knowing that there was no use trying to get in - Shade had flipped the physical locking mechanism on the door, and Gaster had left the required set of keys upstairs - he opted for knocking lightly, waiting in silence for an answer.

Minutes passed and the skeleton knocked a second time before the lock at last unlatched and the door swung open, revealing a barely-awake Shade, a blanket wrapped around their form by two… arms? Though the appendages were slightly eerie in appearance, stick-thin like skeleton arms, there were two definitive “hands,” complete with five fingers on each. Briefly intrigued by this, Gaster forgot to greet the ghost.

Yawning hugely, not noticing the lack of greeting and seeming thoroughly disinterested, they floated back to their bed and settled down, though still vertical, blinking slowly. Seeing them this way called back unwelcome memories of when they would show up day after day at the Lab for experiments, often so tired that they seemed to not yet have speech at their disposal. It seemed some things never changed.

_ What is wrong with me this morning?  _ The scientist scolded himself silently, shaking his skull. Rather than attempting to push the sleepy ghost to converse, Gaster placed their bowl of oatmeal next to them on the bed and settled at the table, now taking a few minutes to enjoy his coffee in silence now that it had cooled enough to swallow down easily.

Several minutes ticked away, Shade slowly picking at their breakfast until they’d eaten about half, before they finally spoke in a bleary, raspy voice. “S’up, man?”

Giving his skull a shake, Gaster elected to remain silent; looking puzzled, but still seeming too exhausted to bother pushing him, Shade finished up their meal, setting aside their bowl once done. The foggy expression on their face began to fade from them now, and their mouth turned grim with anticipation of dire news that had broken over the night. With all the things that could possibly go wrong, they didn’t dare to even guess.

“Gaster?” Shade tried again, shifting their weight uneasily on the bed. “Did something happen?”

“Yes and no,” Gaster evaded, his voice quiet and subdued. Suddenly, he was beginning to wonder why he’d wanted to talk to the ghost so badly. What exactly did he stand to gain from it? 

Inevitably, Shade’s mind jumped to yesterday’s conversation with Boli, and the way he’d sat with his skull on their shoulder, feeling somehow closer than any monster had ever been to them. They knew they should be fearing for Angel and Ilea in that moment, yet….

They knew many things about Gaster; and now, only two seemed particularly significant. First: he thoroughly monitored everything around him - it was rare indeed that something escaped his notice. Next: the consequences of interfering with his progress often proved fatal. Exactly how much of an interference in Gaster’s meticulous control over Boli would they be considered if that closeness came to light?

Behind a mask of expressionlessness, their fear began to climb. “Did something happen to Ilea?” Shade pressed, deflecting attention from the true topic of their concern.

Though he shook his skull, Gaster merely burying his face in his hands afterwards only caused Shade’s apprehension to multiply. If it wasn’t that, then…?

“Gaster?” Shade repeated, louder and more forcefully this time.

When a low groan of pain rumbled in Gaster’s throat in response to the volume, Shade felt their soul flip over. “Wait, you’re…” they paused, their mind suddenly jumping to countless mornings of bottles of painkillers rattling in the scientist’s labcoat pockets, holding mugs of coffee like life rafts, empty bottles left piled up in the recycling bins. “You’ve been drinking again, huh?”

Rather than answering directly - because, really, did it matter? - Gaster rested his chin in his palm and shrugged his shoulders. “Not the worst mistake I’ve made in the past twenty-four hours.”

Confused and incomprehensive, Shade leaned towards Gaster slightly, forcing themselves to sound like their usual mischievous, teasing self as they whispered, “ya know, I can’t really work my magic if you don’t tell me anything.”

“We shared souls, Shade.”

For a split-second, the phantom made no connection; the words bounced off. But only for a moment. “...Well, uh,” Shade choked, laughing weakly, struggling to stay neutral. “You can’t really un-ring that bell, so, I mean…”

Hiding his face in his palms, Gaster chuckled bitterly. “I’m a damned fool. In over my skull, and realizing it all too late. Shade, I… I fear I’ve lost at my own game. I fear I’ve fallen in love with him.”

The words stung and burned simultaneously, and they found themselves recoiling. “Are you  _ kidding?  _ He’s… your creation, Gaster! I know you’re the epitome of “mad scientist,” but… Seriously, you fucked him? That’s - that’s…” Trailing off in their furious words, running out of anything articulate to express their emotions, they released a viscerally fierce hiss. Realizing that Gaster was only staring at them, solemn and exhausted, they dug deeper for words.

_ Why am I even upset? I should be happy. This means Gaster won’t snap and kill him nearly as soon as I thought _ . Slouching, they avoided the scientist’s gaze and blinked away tears. If he caught onto their emotions as being anything more than revulsion… 

Before they had quite decided the words they’d speak, or even realized their significance that would be lost on the scientist, they had spoken them quietly, shaking their head back and forth.

“If you’re really in love with him, guess you’re even more fucked than I am.”


	49. Throwing Shade/Parasomnia

 

For a time after Shade’s words, Gaster found himself staring silently into the distance, finding himself perplexed by the phrase they’d chosen. At face value, it made enough sense - they were stuck storeys beneath monster society, unknown by all, marked for death. A painful death, at that. Yet the context, their inflection, the weight of the words, all seemed to point towards something Gaster couldn’t quite make out. 

Realizing suddenly that he was letting on all too clearly how he was struggling with the meaning of Shade’s choice phrase, he cleared his throat and swiftly searched for words. If nothing else, he could stall for time and probe for more details that might clear up the questions.

“I… had not anticipated it would upset you, Shade,” Gaster ventured, inspecting Shade’s desolate expression. It was difficult to tell exactly what emotions they displayed.

“ _ That _ doesn’t,” Shade spat. “But you’re pissing me off acting like you regret it. Acting as if you care how you get off - or who you use to do it.”

Swallowing down an immediate response of “it was not like that,” the skeleton stared down into his empty coffee mug. Eventually, he found himself unfolding his hands atop the table and staring into his palms instead as he tried to find a better way to say it hadn’t been a matter of “using” Boli.

“Shade, I’ve never… aside from to conceive my son, I was never much for…” he attempted, quickly trailing off. Between that and Shade’s knowledge of his drunken fling with Grillby, the ghost undoubtedly had the resources they needed to finish the puzzle.

But they only shook themselves back and forth, clenching shut their mouth to stifle a hiss. “Why are you even telling me this? What do you want? I’m not going to tell you what you did was okay - not in a million lifetimes! He’s so  _ young,  _ Gaster, and I don’t mean physically. And you made him. How could that ever be okay? I’m not going to laugh this off. Not this time.”

Looking up from his hands, Gaster inspected the ghost’s torn-up expression. “Good. You ought to spit on me. Even I draw lines someplace. I overstepped this time, and I will be transparent with you - I absolutely am ashamed.”

“It would be one thing if I had only done it for the reasons you said - to use him, to “get off.” However, my… emotions… I feel I...” Trailing off, unable to finish his original sentence, Gaster cleared is throat and wiped at the corners of his mouth. Staring at the tabletop, he scrambled for a different way to finish the sentence. “I… I have made a more significant mistake. He will want this again, and I-”

“...Shut the fuck up, Gaster.” 

Rising from where they rested, Shade advanced on the scientist with what could only be described as quiet menace. “Stop. Just stop - before you make me do something we both regret. ‘Cuz I’m starting to realize you’re just not fucking worth it. You aren’t worth the dust on your hands.” 

“Sh-Shade?”

Stopping in their advance, Shade’s eyes met Gaster’s with cool, measured malice. 

“I’m starting to see: if _you’re_ the best hope for this world, it should just stay doomed.” 

Clenching his jaw so that it didn’t drop open at the icy cold, blunt words, Gaster shrank away slightly. “I… I had thought... “ he began, wrestling with the surprising magnitude of hurt in his chest cavity. “...thought we had formed somewhat of an understanding, Shade. I thought I could speak freely with you.”

Suddenly, Shade’s mouth yawned open wide, tooth spurs sharpening as a cackle erupted from them. “Oh,  _ really,  _ Gaster? You got fooled by a “deceptive little haunt” like me? Don’t you know we ghosts are all untrustworthy backstabbers?”

Sockets widening at the words and the cold, distant glow of their eyes, Gaster rose to his feet and stepped towards Shade. “Open your mouth, Shade, I need to check your soul chamber. I fear-”

“I’m fine!” Shade snarled in response, though when Gaster continued forward, their body emitted a sudden squishing noise, and the soul chamber ejected from them with enough force that they might as well thrown it at the skeleton before them. Catching it by the handle before it could hit the floor, the scientist inspected the display at the top of the chamber.

“...You are not behaving like yourself, Shade,” he muttered after a moment, setting the chamber lightly  on the floor in front of him. “I  fear the Determination may be causing behavioural disturbances-”

“As if you know when I’m acting like “myself!” Maybe you’re just too deep in denial that you’ve never figured me out.”

Meeting Shade’s hostile stare, Gaster now recalled all-too-clearly their reunion in Snowdin; the ghost had caught him rather off guard then with their willingness to attack - and again, he had misjudged them when bringing them to the Underlab. Their rage willing and able to wash him away had been severely underestimated then.

No, it wasn’t that Gaster had any problems “figuring” the ghost out - rather, the difficulty lay in grasping what motivated Shade’s anger at this moment. He knew they were but a fur’s width from attacking, yet he couldn’t quite factor  _ why.  _

As Shade moved forward, their form melting around the soul chamber and absorbing it so it lit their mouth up from within once more, Gaster studied their face closely. Could it be…? Their expressions were often difficult to discern, yet in this moment he found himself suddenly quite certain indeed.

“Perhaps my eyes deceive me, Shade, but is that  _ envy  _ on your face?” Straightening his spine, posturing coolly, he awaited the dead giveaway of the ghost’s anger multiplying.

But it didn’t. Straight-faced, perfectly measured, they flatly answered, “as if I could ever feel  _ anything  _ for you or anything you’ve ever touched with those filthy hands.”

It took all Gaster had to not recoil. The same thing was easy to identify in Angel, as she displayed it with such bold aggression; flaunting, even. But with Shade, it was quiet and measured, and he realized only in that moment that he was staring blatant, unrepentant hatred square in the eyes.

And, as the realization dawned, Gaster found he truly would have preferred to call them “friend.”

_ *Always too little, too late, huh, Uncle Gaster? _

Smiling coolly through the sinking feeling consuming him, Gaster stepped neatly to the door, halting long enough to meet Shade’s eyes a final time as he icily remarked, “yet, these  _ filthy hands  _ have been all over you, too, have they not?”

As he left the room behind with not another sound, he couldn’t help thinking it might as well be empty. He had wasted his breath on someone whose use had just expired.  _ It is better that way. It is not as if they were ever more than a subject of my experiments - they have been nothing more than that, and the fact that I allowed myself to forget that was… _

Stopping as he briefly caught his reflection’s eye in the darkened window of a holding room’s door, he gently dragged his fingertip down the crack above his eye, then the other below his other socket. 

_...Foolish. _

Rubbing a hand against his forehead, he sighed. With a mind only heavier still than it had been when he’d awoken, he felt nothing more than apprehension at the thought of meeting up with Boli. He would want to discuss the previous night; something that Gaster was far from prepared to do - in fact, he’d only further unravelled his capability to do so by wasting the vulnerability on Shade.

_ I need more time to sort out all these foolish feelings,  _ he groaned inwardly.  _ Else, I will say everything entirely wrong, and…  _ Stifling a noise of frustrated anguish, he leveled a glare at his reflection in the glass before him once more.  _ I do not want to make any more of a mess of this like… with everyone else. _

“ _ Aster… _ ”

Nearly leaping off the ground in fright at the sudden, though faint, voice, the scientist swung around to scan the empty hallway, breathing rapid. “Chara?” he called out, managing to keep his voice steady. The only response was a small, distant laugh, and the sound disappeared down the corridor, leaving a faint aroma of…

Mango?

Trembling slightly, Gaster pursued the sound until he reached the door he’d been led to. Another ten or so paces  down the hall and he would come upon the room Boli had been born in, a room that he had often paced about before he’d awoken his creation. It had been his favorite destination to find his thoughts, accompanied by pale green light and the low buzz of machinery, and little else.

In retrospect, studies had long suggested that even before the formation of their physical forms, fetal souls could perceive a limited view of their world - voices, and the emotions bled off from souls that were close by. 

_ Perhaps,  _ Gaster pondered,  _ that is why he seemed to know me from the beginning. How many times did I pass by his chamber, muttering to myself? Certainly enough times that I lost track. So, I wonder… _

Blinking rapidly as he dragged his thoughts back to the present, Gaster’s mouth set into a grim line.  _ For all the time I spent there, I have not set foot in this room even once since… _

Bracing himself, Gaster tested the door. Finding it unlocked, he pushed his way inside, stumbling to a halt at the sight of her.

Even now, it seemed, suspended in the clear liquid of the glass chamber, sockets with cracks like spiderlegs peacefully shut, she held some sway over all he was - all he thought he could be. Pulling the door shut behind him, he slowly crossed the room to stand before her.

“Hello, Portulaca.”

At the greeting it seemed the silence all around grew ever wider, swallowing the room whole. Letting the world outside the walls fade from his mind, he stepped forward until he could lay his palm flat on the cool surface of the glass chamber. 

For a moment, all that existed were memories of his missteps, incorrect turns, and the way she would swallow the feelings behind her sockets and smile - it was a type of courage he could never place a price on, as invaluable as the times when she knew to snap and draw a line. Perhaps the trait was hereditary.

“You would have some choice words for me right now, I think,” Gaster chuckled bitterly, tears burning in his sockets. “Yet I think I would not mind to hear them all.”

All too late and pointlessly, he realized he’d spent far too much effort telling those around him - and himself - that he had never truly loved her. Yet there had always been obstacles neither monster could surpass, never acknowledging they each built their walls in the night only to act under a guise of guilt as they tried once more to knock them down.

Now her walls were only an empty shell where someone he’d loved had once lived. It seemed straightforward now - it only seemed to when it no longer mattered. Stepping forward a final pace, Gaster rested his skull against the glass, level with Portulaca’s, closing his sockets tightly. For once, he felt no shame that tears escaped and ran down his face. 

All she was now was a buzz of machinery, a bundle of silent magic - she could not pass judgement on him any longer. Only in dreams and in the fabrications of his DT-addled mind would she ever have a voice. 

Yet even as that realization dawned, the machinery before him emitted a beep of protest, causing Gaster to startle, shrinking away from the skeleton before him. Before he could move to check the display, Portulaca’s soul - nothing more than an empty outline, inert and without life, barely visible at all - stirred with a faint orange light. The particles danced up through the chamber’s fluid, disappearing like sparks off a campfire into a night sky. 

Breath catching in his windpipe, Gaster rushed to the monitor on the corner of the chamber, watching in fascination as the output of her neurological system teetered up and down in the pattern of a sleeping soul, jumping up suddenly after a flatline that stretched far into the past.

“You’re…  _ dreaming _ ,” Gaster realized, turning back towards the comatose skeleton suspended in the chamber. “Do you hear me? Do you know I’m here?”

As if in response, the orange light brightened to a constant glow, unfurling slowly from the chamber to fold around Gaster, brushing at his wrists  before tightening gradually. Frozen on the spot, he stared at the magic binding him - ORANGE magic, only effective on immobile opponents. 

“Portulaca?” he questioned in a cracking voice, his hands trembling. To cast a magic attack in one’s sleep was far from unheard of, yet to receive one with, what seemed to him, a painfully clear message, seemed more than he could bear in that moment. 

_ Keep moving, and you’ll be okay,  _ she seemed to say, the orange tendrils tightening around his bones until they creaked under the force, threatening to splinter.  _ You can’t fall to inaction. I know how easy it is for you. You have to keep moving. _

Yet he couldn’t seem to feel the pain of the magic, his eyes locked on her soul as it danced with shades of amber and orange he couldn’t count. All he could think of was how she had felt when they’d shared souls - so much…  _ everything,  _ too much, and again with Boli.

The horrendous snap of bone, almost like a gunshot, brought Gaster back to reality and he reeled away uncontrollably, a yelp escaping him - instants later, the orange magic he’d pulled out of vanished, leaving the scientist holding the snapped bone of his ulna together with one hand, dripping circulatory magic up his sleeve and into his palm.

Breathing shakily, Gaster backed up until his spine collided with the door where he stayed, sockets wide with terror, fixed on the skeleton in the chamber. But her soul, with one final amber flicker, faded back to the edges of existence, leaving her life force all but invisible once again. The activity on the display petered out, leaving behind the nothingness that should have always been.

“Gods, gods, gods,” Gaster hissed under his breath, pulling back his sleeve to inspect the break. Not all the way through - several splinters of bone still held on, and the leak of purple marrow from within had already all but stopped. “Gods.  _ Fuck _ . You made your point.”

Leering across the room once more, blinking away tears of pain that had welled up in his sockets, he dared to take another step back towards the chamber. ““Move on, Aster,” correct?  You and Angel would be fast friends - always pushing me to make something of what I’ve done.”

Pausing from his furious rant towards the unhearing skeleton, he tightened his grip on the fracture in his wrist, clenching his jaw against the jolt of pain up his arm. “I know what I have to do!” All but shouting now, he stepped back to the chamber until he could touch his skull to the glass once more - but he didn’t, instead staring in at Portulaca’s closed sockets, steadily.

“I  _ know  _ what I need to do. Yet I have made the same mistake countless times. Do you truly believe I can change? Am I able move past  _ all that _ , when I can barely keep moving forward?”

Windpipe burning, Gaster’s attention shifted over to the display once more, focusing on the control panel. It was one pushed button, a few keystrokes for a passcode, and that would be all it took to power down the machine, and the chamber would turn stagnant and cloudy with her dust. 

“Do  _ you _ want it to be over, I wonder? Do  _ you _ want to die?”

 

 

Rooms away, out of sight though heavy on Gaster’s mind, Boli stood at the monitors of the Underlab, his sockets fixed on the blacked-out display of the room the scientist had vanished into some minutes ago. In truth, he wanted nothing  more than to run to that room, if only to share space with the other skeleton for awhile, but his legs wouldn’t budge in that direction.

Gaster had said all he needed to say without words by leaving in secret before the dawn, hiding himself in an unmonitored room in the underlab: he didn’t want the boy’s company. And although he had known just what to expect when morning came, it still stung.

Wringing his hands and trying to ignore the ache in his soul, he looked instead to Shade; still asleep, by all appearances. His interruptions weren’t wanted anywhere.

Fighting against discouragement the best he could, Boli looked for a distraction from the thoughts on the security screens before him - quickly, he focused on the still, lifeless room that held the chamber in which he’d been grown. Gaster had gone into the room next door, Boli realized suddenly. 

Squirming as suspicion inevitably settled in on him, Boli silently memorized the path there. Maybe Gaster’s hiding place wasn’t simple avoidance at all - maybe there was something he was trying to keep hidden - why else would the camera still be off?

_ Well. This time, I’ll be a step ahead of where he thinks I am,  _ Boli declared to himself.  _ But it’ll have to wait for later. I’ve got an actual job to do. _

Turning decisively away from the security system, Boli boarded the elevator back upwards, shoving down his anger for a later time.  _ Off to visit the king! Wonder if Gaster knows what I really wanna talk about with his oldest friend? _


	50. Egress

As he reached the entrance to the resort, Boli found himself eagerly awaiting the relief from the heat, but that feeling was soon to be forgotten as he passed through the automatic doors. His legs stumbling to a clumsy halt at the immediate cacophony of noise greeting him, he hugged his arms around himself tightly.

The lobby was buzzing with its usual activity, making enough racket on its own; to add onto it, the centre of the wide room was tarped off, a steady, high-pitched screeching Boli couldn’t identify grating on his hearing. Felling a body jostle him from behind as someone slipped past him after his sudden stop, the boy clutched frantically at the sleeves of his sweater, squeezing the material in his fists. 

He could see the doorway that would lead him to the back of the resort and the elevator to the castle from where he stood, yet his feet felt rooted to the ground, his mind screaming to retreat back to the quiet safety of the lab, where a hundred eyes and a thousand sounds weren’t trying to crack open his skull and-

“You’ll have to come back in a few days if ya wanna see it,” a gruff voice broke into Boli’s circling thoughts, and he managed to focus his attention on the monster speaking to him. 

They were rather short and rotund, seemingly limbless, though they managed to wear a construction jacket around their body, fastened on by a belt. 

“Oh, uh, w-w… I, um?” Boli stammered, biting his tongue and scrambling for a response that wouldn’t involve any “problem letters.” Before he could, though, the other monster scoffed, shaking his head reprimandingly. 

“Kids these days! I’m talking about the monument for Prince Asriel,  _ obviously _ !” The construction worker jerked his head back towards the tarped off area now, frowning, looking outright ornery in Boli’s direction now. “Whaddya, live under a rock?”

“N...No, I’m s-sorry, I…” Boli fumbled, staring down at the tile in front of his sneakers. “I just didn’t… didn’t know, I’m s-sorry-” Blinking back tears, he dared to glance to the other monster for a moment, only to find that he was already headed back to the tarped-off section of the lobby, shaking his head irritably. 

Fighting against discouragement with all he head - which, admittedly, after that encounter wasn’t much -  Boli forced himself to walk through the lobby, pressing both hands against his ear holes as he walked by the source of the awful screeching, keeping his eyes straight ahead and silently praying he didn’t attract the entire room’s attention with his foolish behaviour. 

As he passed at last through the back entrance of the resort, he drew the deepest breath he could manage, continuing on until all he could hear was the muted background noise from the CORE.  _ Too much, too much, too much,  _ a quiet voice in the back of his skull repeated, refusing to be silenced. But to go back now, he knew, wasn’t an option - he couldn’t handle the noise all over again, so soon. The only option was to go on.

Clutching his sweater more tightly around himself and bunching the fabric up in his fists, he hurried ahead to the elevator, mashing a bony digit against the “up” button frantically before anyone else could appear to occupy the tight space with him.

_ At least,  _ Boli thought as he pressed his back against the corner,  _ the elevator is quiet. S’okay, it’s just like the one at the Lab. S’okay, s’okay. _

Unable to help feeling a glimmer of triumph as he burst free of the elevator, Boli took a quick glance around himself before punching his fist into the air in victory.  _ Yeah, take that, stupid anxiety!  _ He celebrated silently, relieved to feel the weight on his chest beginning to lift, if only slightly, and only for a moment.  _ Now there’s just one more to go. _

He’d been looking forward to seeing Asgore again since he’d met the king, and now he found himself having difficulty reminding himself of the reason he’d been sent as he rushed ahead to the next lift.  _ Oh well, I know I can fit in both conversations - Asgore did say I was welcome back any time, anyways! Even just to talk! _

Puffing out his chest, Boli made his way swiftly along the walkway that led towards his destination, not taking time to marvel at the view of the capital this time. He already couldn’t help thinking his daylight was slipping away after attempting to follow Gaster to the Underlab costing him valuable time. 

As he ventured to the stone-wrought, barren front entrance of Asgore’s home, he stopped to marvel at the silence of the place. Clearly, monsters didn’t often wander onto their king’s front lawn. Drawing in a breath and raking together his optimism, Boli ventured onward into the house, peering first into the dining room and kitchen - no sign of the king, and given his lumbering mass, he was impossible to miss. 

“Asgore?” Boli dared to call out timidly, drifting back into the entranceway and glancing down the hall. He hadn’t any need to venture that way the first time he’d visited, but now he crept to the undiscovered section of the home. “Um, Asgore? It’s Boli,” he tried again, his sockets passing over the three doors, each tightly shut, in turn. 

_ I don’t think he could still be sleeping,  _ the boy pondered, finding his attention pulled in by a vase with a single golden flower, its head turned happily towards the magical light from the CORE overhead.  _ Oh! Of course. He’s probably with the flowers. Duh.  _

Almost bounding off in the direction he’d come, Boli hopped down the stairs two at a time and made his way along the long, quiet path. Normally he’d take even more time to relish the peace and quiet, but as he reached the empty golden corridor, he found himself shuddering at the sound of his own footfalls echoing eerily down the corridor.

Last time he’d been here, birds had been singing peacefully, muted through the stained glass, but now there was nothing but silence, as if they had recently been startled into disquietness. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling creeping up on him, Boli quickened his pace, but halfway down the corridor his feet abruptly stopped on their own accord. With one fell swoop, he found his ease and confidence snatched away.

A figure cloaked in black sat huddled against a pillar, seeming to already have noticed the boy, though the large, hanging hood which cast a deep shadow around their face made it impossible to tell where their attention was focused. Watching from afar, wary, Boli remained rooted to the spot, as if waiting for the other to make a move.

But before they spoke, a vague knowledge of a monster who ran a “ferry” of sorts came to mind and he found himself relaxing. Was this the Riverperson? Or perhaps a relative? Why in the Underground were they  _ here _ ?

“Uhm, hello?” the slumped figure ventured after a long silence, surprising Boli with their voice, which sounded about as small and timid as he felt. They didn’t stand to greet him, though, and Boli couldn’t help a stirring of concern.

“Oh, you’re not hurt, are you? I’m a decent healer, if you…” Trailing off as a faint laugh emanated from somewhere beneath the monster’s hood, Boli wrung his hands. “Um, are you the Riverperson? W-w-why are you here?”

“Riverperson?” the monster echoed, inquisitive, but then shook their head. “Oh, no. Although, I suppose we look alike enough to be related a few generations back!” Laughing once more, they waved an arm through the air in a playfully dismissing gesture. When they still didn’t stand to converse with him, Boli opted to sit across from them instead, trying his best to avoid looking awkward. Mission temporarily forgotten, he glanced over the monster’s legs briefly - they didn’t appear hurt, as far as he could tell.

“Well, what brings you here?” the stranger ventured in a friendly tone, rearranging themselves where they sat to lean slightly closer to Boli. “I didn’t expect to run into anyone else!”

Pausing for a second, Boli inspected the shadow around their head. “Uhm… I w-w… w-was going to talk to the king,” he explained, attempting to sound casual, though his midsentence pause to tame his tongue rather ruined the intention. “W-w-what about you? This s-seems like an odd place to just s-sit down.”

“I was headed to the garden, as well,” they responded amiably, a smile in their voice. “Someone told me I ought to meet him someday, but I was a little nervous, so I’m taking a break. Do you know him? What’s he like?”

Brightening at what seemed to be genuine interest, Boli leaned a little closer to the stranger. “He’s great! Even though his s-s-son passed away, he’s s-still as kind as can be. I know it takes a lot to be s-strong like that…”

The monster across from him remained silent for a moment now, seeming rather deep in thought. “Is that so?” their tone seemed rather different now, light and cautious. “I find that a little hard to believe. Declaring war on humans and promising revenge don’t seem like kind acts.”

Wringing his hands together in his lap, Boli inspected the other uneasily. Did they really not know? Was it possible for someone to have missed the most crucial details of the story? “I mean, the humans kind of killed his s-s-son, s-so, I, uh,” pausing, clicking his tongue awkwardly, Boli gave a shrug. Not knowing how to articulate the rest of his sentence just yet, he tried to force air deep into himself to calm himself. 

Anxiety was beginning to cause him to rattle quietly, and as the other monster simply remained silent, waiting for him to go on, he cringed at the sound. “And he adopted a human child who fell here, years ago. He loved them as if they were his second child. I know cruel w-when I s-see it, and Asgore just… isn’t.” Relatively satisfied with the words he’d found, Boli tried in vain to read the emotions of the faceless person across from him. Still, they said nothing.

“I mean, if I w-was in his position and I had lost  _ everything... _ ” Shrugging and looking away, Boli realized he could only imagine the anguish and fury that Asgore had felt - and even that seemed bad enough. “W-well, I don’t cons-sider myself good  _ or  _ bad, but I think if I w-was in Asgore’s position, I’d react even more drastically. I think a huge percentage of people w-would.”

The other monster said nothing for a solid minute, unmoving, and Boli began to wonder if they’d suddenly lost the ability to speak - the only sound was Boli’s bones rattling faintly, despite his attempts to silence it.

“What  _ is  _ that?” they wondered suddenly, cocking their head to one side. “Sounds like wooden chimes, but there’s no wind Underground, so who would put up chimes?”

“Oh… uh, it’s me,” Boli sighed, hugging his arms around himself and clenching his jaw so his teeth didn’t chatter. “S-sorry, it’s just pretty chilly here compared to w-where I live - you know, Hotland.” The lie came easily enough, at least, though it made him no less self-conscious of the sound.

“Oh! Are you some sort of tree monster?”

Frowning deeply, profoundly confused by the question, Boli stared into the monster’s hood. Normally, he would find it impossible to look anyone in the eyes this way, but being unable to see their face - or whether or not they  _ had  _ one - benefited him in the moment.

“Uh, no, I’m a s-skeleton,” he explained quickly. “Haven’t you ever s-seen one before?”

“Hah!” the exclamation caused Boli to startle and he shrank away from the stranger. “No, I’ve never  _ seen  _ any monster before - haven’t seen much of anything!”

Jaw hanging open slightly at the realization, Boli quickly covered his agape mouth. “You’re blind?”

“As a bat!” the monster agreed cheerily, then shook their head. “It’s okay, most people don’t notice - I get by just using my magic, anyways! But - I’ve never _ met  _ a skeleton before, so you were mostly right.” Pausing, they chuckled gently. “At least, as far as I know. I’m not always sure what it is I’m meeting.”

Nodding his skull - and admittedly feeling much more at ease now that more of this stranger’s actions made sense - Boli leaned back towards them slightly. “You use magic to get around, huh? That s-sounds pretty neat.”

Rather than brightening at his comment as he’d expected, they only shrugged. “Where I’m from - my species, I mean - we don’t take well to people who aren’t “normal.” I might be “basically normal” thanks to my magic, but I’m still a joke. But thanks for trying.”

Crestfallen, Boli hugged his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knee. Unable to think of anything else to say now, he fished for a way to dismiss himself. “Right, w-well, I s-s… gotta go visit the king, s-so…”

“Oh. Right.” Was that… disappointment in their voice, or just disinterest? Hearing that Boli didn’t stand and walk away immediately, though, they quickly spoke up again. “Can I just ask-” they started, pausing to make sure the boy still wasn’t leaving, “why you’re going to meet with him? Or not. You don’t have to say anything.”

Hesitating, Boli uselessly studied the shadow beneath the stranger’s hood. He had no reason to believe they were untrustworthy, yet plenty of experience that warned him against trust regardless.  _ Telling a partial truth couldn’t hurt,  _ he decided quickly, settling back where he sat, spine against the pillar behind him.

“My boss -  _ the  _ royal s-scientist - and I are trying to break the Barrier in a different w-way than Asgore, but our theories are based off this… really obs-scure thing there’s not much data on.” Explaining with tumbling speed, he only stopped for long enough to breathe. “I guess to be more s-s-specific, an obscure  _ human  _ thing: a red SOUL trait. One that Gaster has only s-seen once before.”

“Oh,” was all the other monster answered with before they went silent again. Unsure how to take their stoic response and their silence, Boli looked around the corridor for a distraction. “You’re not going to ask me the same thing?” the other wondered after a few awkward moments had ticked by.

“I don’t think it’s really my place to ask.”

“I asked you first. But I guess since you’re all  _ important  _ and everything-”

“I’m not,” interjected Boli.

‘-whatever reason some  _ peasant  _ might have must seem boring to you.” 

Unexpectedly, Boli found himself growing impatient with the conversation. Something about the stranger’s personality was needling at him, wearing away at his desire to continue. “Look, it’s not that I don’t w-wanna know, but to be completely honest, I’m  _ real  _ bad at talking to s-strangers. And I don’t like it, either. I only came up to you ‘cuz I thought you were hurt or s-something. S-so I think I’m gonna get going.”

Standing from where he sat, Boli found himself hesitating when they didn’t acknowledge his words. Grimacing at his own curtness now, he backpedalled. “Or. S-s-since w-we’re going to the s-same place, you could… join me?” he suggested timidly after a rather long hesitation. Truthfully, he would very much prefer to go alone, but if this monster couldn’t even see where they were going in a new place such as this…

“You better not be feeling sorry for me,” they sighed almost immediately, almost as if they had read his thoughts. “I’ll have you know, I did  _ not  _ stop here because I’m lost! I’m just enjoying a moment to myself before I push on. There’s a human saying - a real old one: “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Haven’t you heard it?”

Surprised by the prickly response - though having to admit it was spot on - Boli merely glanced down the golden corridor towards the garden. “I haven’t heard that one. It’s a good s-saying - and I know the feeling of needing to take a moment for s-sure. I’ll leave you to it.” 

“Hold on,” the monster cut in quickly, and Boli stifled a groan, “no “my name is so-and-so, by the way, it was nice meeting you”? I’m surprised.”

Faltering, grimacing, Boli turned back towards them. They were right: it would be a social blunder to leave it off at that - though he was sure he’d made many others - seeing as he’d more or less started the conversation in the first place. 

“Well. That’s okay. I doubt I’ll ever see you ever again anyway, so it’s whatever, I just thought-”

“Boli,” the boy interrupted. “I’m Boli.”

Brightening now, the monster lifted a hand in a gesture of farewell; somewhere beneath their hood, Boli thought he sensed a smile. “Well, nice to meetcha, Boli. My name’s Pip. I’ll see you around, okay?”

Slightly unnerved by their sudden change in nature, but far too fed up with their spiralling personality already, Boli simply muttered, “yeah, s-see ya.” Turning away from the interaction at last, Boli gave himself a firm mental shake.

A cup of tea with a laid back, gentle monster king certainly sounded like a welcome contrast at this point.


	51. When will Asgore get to have a Nice Fucking Cup of Tea with Someone

  
As Boli entered the royal garden, a blur of blue scales pushed past him in the opposite direction with an exclamation of “‘scuse me, mister!” Stumbling to keep his footing, Boli craned his neck to watch the young monster sprint full tilt down the corridor, disappearing out the other end nearly before the boy could turn back towards the garden, tipping his skull inquisitively.

“Always in such a rush.” Asgore’s warmly purred words fell on welcoming ears as Boli stepped into the courtyard. Seeming to know he was there without looking, the king went on in a soft rumble, not turning back. “Excellent timing. I’ve just sent Undyne home after her training.”

“Training, huh?” Boli echoed, skimming his feet lightly over the yellow flowers as he crossed the courtyard to join Asgore where he knelt, sprinkling water over a wilting blossom with a watering can that looked comically small in his massive paw. “She’s kinda young to be training, don’t’cha think?”

“Well, we are not so much “training” as I am making sure she is looked after,” Asgore admitted after a moment, setting the watering can down in a patch of bare soil and tucking a fingertip beneath the lifeless blossom as if lifting it up would bring back its life force. “Since both her mothers passed away, someone ought to watch over her.”

“ _Both_ her parents? Man, that’s rough,” Boli sighed, revelling in the ease he found trading words with the king - it was easier even than talking with Gaster, despite his extensive experience navigating the scientist’s temper and quirks.  “Did they get hurt in the war, or…?”

Seeing the immediate change in Asgore from faintly troubled to borderline murderous, Boli shrank back, biting his tongue against an apology that tried to stumble out of his mouth. The expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared, though, leaving Boli unsure whether or not he’d seen it in the first place. Perhaps he wasn’t so comfortable, after all.

“ _They_ took her,” Asgore growled, very quietly - somehow softly - through clenched teeth.

“Humans?” Boli ventured grimly, blinking a few times in attempt to bring the lights back to his sockets before Asgore could notice the grave expression. _So that was Angel’s daughter…?_

“S-sorry, little out of it today!” Boli chirped quickly, shaking his skull firmly. “But, about the humans-”

Words tripping to a halt when he realized Asgore was still staring at him with eyes overflowing with concern, Boli’s feigned cheerfulness fizzled out instantly. _Right. My socket. He’s… not an idiot. He’s staring right at me. Of course he noticed. What do I say? What do I-?_

Before Boli could speak, though, the king reached a paw forward, gingerly touching Boli’s chin from beneath so his skull tipped back farther, shedding stronger light on the cracks. Though he remained frozen for far longer than he would’ve liked, Asgore’s caring stare eating him alive, Boli at last managed to jerk away from the king, clearing his throat and trying to reorganize his thoughts.

“The, uh, humans,” he began again, gruffly, hugging his arms around himself. “Gaster s-sent me to check up on their vitals. He s-said we don’t know how the s-souls will decline - or if they will - s-so, we’re gonna check up on them every few months. That okay?”

“Decline?” Asgore muttered, rising from where he knelt, a cold gleam returning to his eyes. “After the sacrifices made, you are saying they may not even be worth it? That we may lose the souls that she perished for? That I…”

_Killed for?_ Boli finished the sentence silently for the king when he cut himself off. Asgore’s attention dropped to his paws, both clenching into fists before his chest before dropping back to his sides.

Though Boli had been prepared to see a change in the gentle goat monster, knowing he’d committed an act of violence he could never undo, he hadn’t anticipated the sea of shadows dancing behind Asgore’s exhausted eyes as, suddenly, he looked twice the age he had when they’d first met.

“We’re just taking precautions,” Boli responded, smoothly, trying his best to emulate the tone Gaster would have used in the same situation. Admittedly, he felt a small stirring of pride at the calmness he maintained. “If they _are_ showing signs of decay, we’ll take care of it before anything can happen. Just gotta keep an eye on them, that’s all. Gaster and I will keep it under control either way.”

Seeming instantly reassured by the boy’s calm explanation, Asgore soon brightened once again. “Ah, of course! My apologies for the overreaction. I have not…”  he paused for a rather long, tense moment before adding, “felt, erm…”

“Like yourself?” Boli suggested, looking up into the king’s melancholy eyes. The guilt and exhaustion all too clear on his face was familiar territory for Boli, and oddly, he felt differently than he ever had before as he faced it. Before him stood someone who would accept his comfort, who would never lash out in response to reassuring words.

“S’alright. Normal. You might be having thoughts and feelings you’re not used to, but you’re s-still you. Y _ou_ get to decide what to make of everything, and where you go from here. Take it from the s-second greatest scientific mind in the Underground: you’re gonna be okay.”

The surety Boli had in Asgore’s kindness crumbled apart instantly as the king reached forward suddenly, lifting the boy easily off his feet with one hand - stifling a shriek of fright, Boli forced himself to take a moment to process what was really happening before he instinctively started pushing away.

A monster practically three times his mass was intimidating enough, but such sudden movements and the overwhelming weight on his ribs as Asgore hugged him tightly to his chest was nearly too much to handle. Silently weathering the contact now that his perceptions had caught up with reality, Boli calmly brushed off his sweater when the king set him back down on his feet a few long moments later.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Asgore rumbled a moment later, wiping at his watery eyes. “You are a very kind and wise boy, M.V Boli. Gaster is lucky beyond words to have you.”

Darkening, Boli turned his back on the other monster, looking instead towards the doorway to the Barrier. “Yeah, maybe s-someday he’ll figure that out for himself,” he spat, marching off to his destination without waiting to see if Asgore followed behind, silently scolding himself for letting the vitriol slip out.

Stopping as the glaring, undulating light of the Barrier confronted him, Boli squinted against the headache that immediately started up at the sight of it. Though he hadn’t known what to expect exactly, he found himself oddly disappointed by how _ugly_ it was. Hearing Asgore step in behind him, Boli found himself glad to turn and look at king instead of the hideous, shifting magic before him.

“My apologies, Boli, I did not mean to upset you yet again.” Asgore’s voice was absent as he spoke now, looking into the Barrier through narrowed eyes. “...I believe it is midday outside. Can you feel the warmth of the sun shining through? I think it must be a lovely day.”

Stealing a glance towards the Barrier, Boli shook his skull wearily. Truthfully, he felt nothing warm from the Barrier - in fact, he felt nothing at all. A magical construct of such magnitude should excude _something,_ Boli knew, but he sensed nothing. Perhaps it was simply that far above his limited perception.

“The souls, please,” was all he said in the end.

With a whir and clank of machinery, the seven soul chambers rose from the floor, shedding blue and orange light across the colorless room. “Always business first, just like your partner, I see,” Asgore mused gently. Despite knowing the king meant no offense by the choice of words, Boli flinched.

Focusing instead on the human souls, he took a step towards them. “Huh. Mixed crowd here, huh? Patience, bravery, and, uh-?”

“Integrity,” Asgore chipped in, though his voice and expression had darkened once more. “Though clearly their traits have no bearing on their nature.”

Windpipe tightening, Boli scrambled hastily for a way to steer the conversation now that they were on the topic of traits. Trying to remain casual, he bought himself time by checking over the displays on the chambers; naturally, they were all perfectly healthy souls. There was no real possibility of a creation of Gaster’s to fail.

“Well, they’re vague, aren’t they?” the skeleton ventured at last. “And could have dual meanings - bravery can mean courageousness _or_ foolish recklessness, patience can mean lying in wait or hesitation - I’m sure even the “kindness” trait has a darker side, don’t you think?”

When Asgore didn’t respond at once, Boli hesitantly glanced over his shoulder. Seeming to sense he was being monitored now, Asore pulled his grim stare away from the darker blue soul, putting on a smile, his broad chest rising and falling with a massive sigh as he seemed to employ conscious effort to throw off the weighty emotions.

“I am sure you are right, Boli.” Tucking a few strands of long blond fur that had escaped his crown back beneath it, he straightened up and nodded firmly. “After all, Gaster is the one who is teaching you these things - and who is more known for study of humans than him?”

For a moment, Boli swore he sensed resentment in the monster’s voice, but he had no time to dwell on it as the realization struck that this was his best opportunity to zero in on his topic. “About that, uh… well, you can put the soul chambers back, I’m done with that. Maybe we could find somewhere better to talk than this…” pausing, he squinted back towards the Barrier, “ugly place,” he finished, quietly.

As the souls retreated back beneath the ground, Boli left the Barrier room behind, trying to shake off the dizziness it left him with. Rubbing his sockets briefly, he drew a deep breath. “I w-wanted to ask you about Chara’s trait. The thing is, w-we’ve both been doing a _lot_ of reading through old archives, but nothing about a RED soul trait has come up. There’s been other humans with RED s-souls, surely? But they don’t seem to be well-documented.”

The monster before him said nothing even minutes after Boli let himself trail off, and he began to wonder if he was going to have to find words for a more specific inquiry. Suddenly, Asgore swung around, his expression smouldering with a strange contradiction - severity and concern alike, tempering one another into something perfectly calm.

“Does this have something to do with why you needed to check on the souls? I know Gaster is experimenting on Chara…’s soul. Has something happened?”

Now feeling about the size of an ant in the face of the demand, Boli found he could only shake his skull, trying to contain his anxious tremoring within his frame. “No, Asgore, I w-w-w… I only w-wa-wanted to know w-w....” sockets burning with tears, Boli clenched his jaw tightly. _Keep it together, you fucking idiot._

Giving up on talking, he looked down at his feet and hastily swiped at either eye with his sleeve. “S-sorry. Forget it.”

Keeping his eyes downward, Boli forced himself to hold steady as Asgore knelt on one knee now, his stare clouded over with memories. “I am sorry, Boli, but to tell you the truth, I believe I am done thinking of humans until I must face the next.”

Sniffling, still trying to reign in the urge to let the tears flow, Boli nodded his skull. “I understand. W-we’re just… stuck, and frustrated, and it’s…” sighing, clearing his throat, he ventured a fleeting glance at Asgore’s searching eyes. “Hard,” he concluded, scuffing one foot against the soil beneath him a few times and pretending to be rather fascinated with the surrounding room.

“I really wanted to help him,” Boli found himself blurting suddenly a moment later, all his attempts to disguise his emotions collapsing as he felt the corners of his mouth beginning to tremble, wetness leaking from his sockets and rolling down his cheekbones. “And I thought if you knew something, but _you’ll_ be upset if I ask, and I don’t want you to be upset, either - I don’t want… don’t want… anyone to be…” letting his verbal abilities break down, Boli covered his face with both hands, letting sobs shake his chest for a moment before catching his breath.

“I’m s-sorry.” Though Boli’s voice rasped and shook up and down, he managed to force a sad, pathetic smile onto his face. “It’s been a long week. I haven’t gotten much sleep.” Wiping at his eyes, he gave his skull a nod. “Well, the souls are all doing great, so I think I’ll just head back to the Lab. Gaster’s w-waiting, and-”

Stopping abruptly at the feeling of Asgore’s paw on his humerus, firm yet gentle, Boli slowly turned back to the king. Unsurprised to see that the look of concern there had only grown, he tried again to turn away, but the king’s grip tightened enough that he found himself oddly afraid to try once more to pull away.

“Boli, I am concerned about you - and your immediate well-being is more important than any research you’re involved in alongside Gaster. I think you and I ought to sit down and talk properly about… other options for you.”

_Other options?_ The phrase caused Boli’s soul to plummet into his abdominal cavity, and he found himself staring at Asgore in horror. _Oh god, what in the Underground was I thinking? I said too much. What if he tries to take me away? Gaster will… he’ll… And what about_ me? _What am I gonna do without him?  The only reason I’m even_ alive _is for him!_

“No, he needs me,” the clone whimpered at last, clutching his hands in front of his chest, trying to find words despite the fact his windpipe seemed to be trying to close up altogether. Part of him knew that there was nothing he could say to make the situation look better from Asgore’s perspective, but the words kept pouring out.

“I have now-w-where else to go, and I like my job, I _love_ my job, and I love _him_ , and I-” realizing his words only after they had already slipped out, he shook his skull; desperately, resolutely. “I don’t w-want other options. I don’t w-want your help.”

Ribs rising and falling rapidly with his panicked breaths, Boli yanked his arm savagely out of Asgore’s grip. Unable to look at the expression on the caring king’s face, whatever it may be, he turned and fled from the throne room, almost tripping over the verge between soil and stone.

Not stopping to look back to see if he was being pursued, he kept up his pace down the golden corridor, though he found himself instinctively slowing to a stop as he reached the pillar where he’d parted ways with Pip. He surely didn’t want anyone seeing or talking to him at the moment - it was more of a curiosity whether or not they had found their way back.

Their spot was empty now, except - squinting through tears that blurred his vision, Boli sniffled a few times, wiping at his sockets. It took him a few moments, but he soon identified the abandoned object as a journal. Kneeling down, he picked up the dog-eared, ragged spiral-bound notebook that sat left behind on the golden tile.

After a quick glance down the corridor to make sure Asgore hadn’t yet caught up, Boli flipped open the first page, surprised by the curious air of magic hanging about the pages - though, he soon saw why, for embroidered into the paper was nearly-illegible, slanted printing made of PURPLE magic, the threads woven into the pages themselves.

“Boli?” Asgore’s soft call echoed down the corridor a moment later - not turning to see the king step into sight, Boli tucked the abandoned journal under his arm for closer inspection later, leaving behind the New Home and all the hope it might have held.


	52. Gaster's Determination

“Boli?” Gaster’s voice echoed down the empty halls of the Lab as he made his way to room after room that the boy tended to frequent, but finding himself disappointed time and time again. Completing his rounds and surrendering, he drifted back to the kitchen, empty coffee mug in hand, to brew himself a refill.

It was odd to find himself feeling so aimless and disconcerted due to something as simple as the boy’s absence - realizing suddenly that the boy must often feel this way, Gaster welcomed the stirring of guilt in his midsection. Guilt was soon to be his only compass in the coming days as he followed his convictions into uncharted territory.

As he set his empty mug beneath the drip brewer, he immediately noticed the note scrawled on a sheet of loose paper tucked under a mug left on the counter.  _ Going to Asgore’s. Be back before suppertime,  _ the sheet read, looking as though it had been written fairly hastily - or perhaps that was what Boli’s printing always looked like. That he’d never bothered to notice gave Gaster another tiny nip of guilt.

Shaking his skull, he silently went about preparing his coffee, though he found himself hesitating as he reached for the tin of grounds in the cupboard, looking instead at an ancient box of teabags pushed to the back of the otherwise empty shelf. Taking it out, he opened up the box, shifting it back and forth - only one sachet missing. The sweet floral smell was nearly tempting, but he replaced the box in its dejected spot and finished brewing his coffee.

As he left the kitchen behind, headed back towards the bedroom to continue his endless perusal of useless documents, a distant beep from the automatic doors at the main entrance being activated reached him. Brightening, he abandoned his intended task and instead hurried towards the front entrance.

Before he could round the final corner, though, he heard a voice that made him stop in his tracks, his soul thumping so furiously that he thought it might leap up through his windpipe. The deepness, the booming volume, the menace… All unplaceable in his memory, but still he froze for a moment, rationality lost as his instincts screamed a dozen things at him at once - mainly, to run far away and not look back.

“Gaster! Wingdings Gaster!” The king was yelling, his commanding voice echoing down the hallway. “I know you are here!”

_ Asgore,  _ the skeleton told himself, pressing the heels of his hands into his sockets,  _ it’s only Asgore.  _

Struggling to catch his breath, to clear the lump in his throat, the scientist stepped around the corner, tucking his hands behind his tailbone neatly and straightening his spine. “Now, is there any need to shout that way?” He postured coolly. 

When the king turned on him with blue fire burning deep in his eyes, though, Gaster felt his confidence vanish in an instant. He hadn’t seen such rage in this monster’s eyes since… glancing around instinctively for any signs of the hallucinated image of Chara, he struggled to maintain his composure.

As Asgore’s chest rose and fall with a massive breath passing through him, Gaster found himself fighting to stand straight, the sinking feeling behind his sternum impossible to ignore. In an instant his mind had flashed through a thousand possibilities, but somehow, he found it difficult to focus on anything but the fact that Boli wasn’t with the king.

“Where is he?” Asgore growled lowly.

“He isn’t with you?” Lights vanishing from his sockets, Gaster looked towards the doors as if expecting Boli would suddenly appear. 

“He was until about twenty minutes ago,” the king’s voice still did not soften, his mouth pulled into a grim, straight line, “when he fled my attempt to free him from  _ you. _ ” 

A rift opened up between the things that Gaster knew he should feel - what he  _ wanted  _ to feel - and what he fell so easily to; concern for the boy and where he might be, and fierce suspicion and betrayal. What had Boli revealed to the king to put him in such a rage? Was he safe? How  _ dare  _ he jeopardize his purpose? Why hadn’t he come back? Had their experiments been compromised?

Torn in two, windpipe feeling stretched tight, Gaster stared helplessly up at Asgore. Seeming confused by the expression the scientist displayed, the other monster’s severity lapsed for a moment and he looked over his shoulder, back out towards Hotland. 

“I am relieving him of his role,” Asgore said slowly, heavily, looking back to Gaster. “In truth, when I first met him, I thought that he might be exactly what you have needed all this time. But I have seen and heard enough today to know that he is just like the others to you. You do not deserve his kindness.”

Sockets stretching wide with shock, Gaster clenched his fists at his sides. “You cannot terminate  _ my  _ employee, Asgore!” He nearly shouted, wrestling to push down his indignance. For all the years he’d spent growing up alongside this furry fool an equal, it took all he had to remind himself this was now his king. 

“I am able to do a lot more than that,” Asgore spoke coolly now, his eyes fiercer than Gaster had ever expected to see them. It was an expression adopted straight from Toriel, he realized with a jolt of anguish. 

The words were a scarcely-veiled threat, Gaster knew; a threat to take away his funding, to shut down his entire lab, even fire him altogether. Rage and indignation boiled hotly in his abdomen, his fists tightening until they trembled at his sides. 

_ Gods, it would be so easy to erase you off the planet,  _ he seethed silently, shutting his sockets against the magic blazing his pupils purple. He could feel it pooling in the palms of his hands, screaming in his soul, coursing through his marrow.  _ So easy. Just one attack…  _

“You can’t take him,” Gaster spoke thickly, menacingly. “He doesn’t want to go. That’s why he ran from you. You  _ cannot  _ take that choice away from him-”

“You have made him too afraid to leave!” Asgore boomed over the skeleton. “His choice is not sound! I have known you a very long time, Gaster, and I have seen enough to know he is in danger of  _ being killed _ !” 

“That is _ not  _ true!” The scientist returned, though he couldn’t quite match the king’s volume. “I would  _ never- _ ”

“Lies! How hard did you have to strike him to break open his socket?”

Quicker than an ember in a downpour, Gaster’s lividity died away and he instead stared up at Asgore with round, solemn sockets. If he knew the truth - if there was any conceivable way to tell Asgore that the boy had saved Ilea’s life, and sported the scars as a result… 

_ Part _ of the truth would change everything - it would turn the tide back in Gaster’s favor. But the rest, he feared, would lend Asgore the rage he needed to end his life on the spot. Though the king desired to break the Barrier as well, Gaster knew that his convictions were far more dithering and… Humane.

“I… didn’t…” Gaster’s voice quickly died away and he fought the urge to sink down to the floor, heavied by the whirlpool of emotions pulling at him. “It… wasn’t…”

“He tried to kill himself.”

Startling at the unexpected voice, Asgore and Gaster both swung to face the automatic doors where Boli stood, his entrance unnoticed amongst the earlier shouting. His sockets were ringed in dull green from crying, trembling in every limb as he stepped closer to the arguing pair. 

“Boli…” Breathing the name, Gaster stepped close to the boy, placing both his hands on the boy’s shoulders. Despite everything, he had never seen his assistant look quite so battered and defeated. 

At a loss for words, he moved to pull the boy into an embrace, but Boli slithered away suddenly, ducking under Gaster’s arm to face Asgore instead, lifting his chin high.

“Gaster tried to commit suicide,” the boy continued, the corners of his mouth quivering as he spoke, steadily forming the words. “He was going to die. My magic isn’t very strong, but I used  _ every single ounce  _ of healing I had to stop it. But I couldn’t contain it, and the magic overflowed and cracked open my skull. And, yeah - it fucking hurt, more than anything I’ve ever felt, and it’s  _ his _ fault. But I couldn’t let him die. I said earlier - I love him.”

Shocked into silence, Gaster looked from Boli to Asgore, feeling tears beginning to burn in his sockets. “Is that true?” the king said, but he scarcely heard the voice for a moment - all he wanted to do was spring forward and lift the boy off his feet and pull him close. 

“I wanted it to be over,” the scientist mumbled numbly, tears escaping and rolling down his cheeks. His path fell so clearly into place now; the path that he had desired with such certainty after the “message” from Portulaca. Admittedly, it was far from how he had intended for this to play out - yet it was perfect.

“But… Boli gave me one final chance. And now, Asgore, I ask you… Please, old friend. I do not beg your forgiveness - I am merely asking the same of you: one final chance to change what I have been for so long. To mend mistakes I have long been making. One final chance to deserve forgiveness - to deserve _him_.”

Perhaps the most daunting fact of the charade was how much of it was genuine. He knew, deep in his soul, burning on and on, that he meant every word. But with how it had come to light, under the falsehood of the boy’s tale, would Boli ever believe it?

Suddenly looking overcome with emotion, Asgore wiped at his eyes. “Finally. “Old friend…” You finally sound like the friend I once had. Of course I will offer you a chance, Gaster. For all the years you have not given yourself one…”

Almost startled, Gaster took a moment to remind himself that the king had always been easy to deceive and placate. Even if he were being wholly dishonest, Gaster knew, the end result would have been the same. But he didn’t welcome the cynical thoughts; for the time being, he wanted nothing to do with them. 

“Thank you, my king,” Gaster blurted, stepping forward and dropping to one knee in a bow, dipping his skull. 

Though rather teary-eyed, Asgore chuckled warmly. “No need for that, Gaster,” he said, reaching down and grabbing onto Gaster’s clavicle, firmly pulling him back to his feet and into an uncomfortably tight embrace. For a split second he couldn’t help realizing how far he had let his guard drop - how easy it would be for this to turn around and end very poorly for him.

But it didn’t. 

Inevitably, Gaster remembered the endless times he’d been told - by himself, by others - that there was no happiness left to be had in his existence. No kindness. No love. 

_ I will find it,  _ he declared to himself, pulling away from Asgore to face Boli instead, dropping to his knees once more and wrapping his arms around the boy, touching his forehead against the other skeleton’s.  _ There is a happy ending even for me, and I am determined. I will create it. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the last chapter that is uploaded.


	53. *Dissociation, Dismissals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey im alive

It was only after lengthy tearful exchanges Gaster weathered patiently - gods, couldn't Asgore see they wanted to be alone? -  __ that the king at last left the Lab, brightened, his optimism seeming rather renewed. Truthfully, even once he had gone and the scientist gave himself time to process the unforeseen exchange, he felt a chilling nothingness in the wake of it all.

Normally, that would be fine. But now, Gaster found he wanted anything except the empty fog that invaded where his emotions belonged. He had long considered  _ feeling things  _ to be inconvenient - ironic that now it was all he wanted to do, and all that mattered.

Boli vanished shortly after the king, leaving Gaster foolishly agape in the lobby, the otherwise empty room silent enough that his head ached. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. 

_ I had a revelation,  _ he lamented.  _ It is not supposed to go this way. I want to… I need to…  _ Shaking his skull, looking down to his unsteady hands he held before him, he stumbled off in the direction Boli had vanished in.

When he reached the bedroom, he discovered Boli laying on his front, skull propped up in his palms, intently reading. Gaster froze in the doorway.  _ So is this it? Are we to pretend that nothing ever happened? ...No. I am NOT going to let that be all.  _

“Boli…” he spoke softly from where he stood, causing the boy to look up in surprise, his sockets wide. Whatever he saw in Gaster’s expression, though, soon spurned him to turn away.

“Yeah. S-s-sorry I fucked up and tipped Asgore off to w-w-what's going on w-with us,” Boli spoke in a rush, yet somehow resigned - like he already knew his fate was grim, but had accepted it. “And you're w-w-welcome. For s-saving your ass. Maybe that evens things out?”

Feeling his feet beginning to grow roots deep into the tile beneath him, Gaster anxiously wrung his hands before his sternum. Words stuck in his throat, sincerity an epoxy that slowed his tongue to a halt. What could he say?

“That about sum it up?” Boli hissed after a minute of silence had passed, turning to look at Gaster once more. This time, though, the scientist’s expression gave him pause. “G’? S-something wrong? It's not the CORE making weird noises again, is it?”

Unable to tell whether or not the boy was making a joke, Gaster only shook his skull. Breaking free of his roots, he managed to step forward and sit on the bed beside Boli. Perhaps the words he needed were simpler than he thought - perhaps he was overthinking it all. If he could only find anything - anything at all - to say.

“Okay, one of  _ those  _ days I guess,” Boli growled, flipping a page in the journal lain out in front of him. “Might as well be talking to a wall.”

“No.” Breaking through the barrier that seemed to dam up the words in his windpipe - mostly thanks to spite and frustration at Boli’s words -  Gaster managed the single syllable. Growling low in his throat, he looked to his forearm, pulling back the sleeve enough to glance over the bandaging around his ulna, rather poorly done and tinted purple around the source of the leaking of magic.

Squeezing the fracture tightly, cursing himself, Gaster stared away.  _ Why must I be so numb? How am I supposed to move forward when I always shut down this way? Gods, I despise it.  _

“Alright - whatever. You can thank me for saving your ass from Asgore later.”

“I meant it, alright?” Gaster burst out abruptly, throwing his hands in the air frustratedly. “I meant I want to, want to… not be like  _ this _ anymore! To be better! I want to…”

His words halted again, as quickly as they started, and he found himself staring vacantly at the wall opposite him. Shouting to get his point across was the last thing that would help now.  _ Please, do not freeze up again… please… _

“I don't want to do this any longer. I want to QUIT.”

Gasping at the burning in his SOUL in response to the words, Gaster instinctively looked around for Chara, appearing to pull him under the waves of darkness, revealing the events to all have been yet another nightmare. But they never appeared.

“...Why are you  _ SO EVIL?”  _ Boli cried out suddenly, his hands balling up into fists as he sat up, facing Gaster. “You don't have to lie and try to trick me, too - it doesn't  _ matter!  _ So why? Are you just playing a game with me? It’s enough, now, I told you I’m s-sick of it!”

“No. It was no lie. I meant every word - Asgore’s appearance was only a complication. That was not how I wanted the conversation to go, to say the least, but  I  _ did _ mean it.” Repeating the words, Gaster extended a hand towards Boli. “I will prove it - somehow. Give me a chance.”

For longer than he could estimate, Boli only stared into his sockets, solemn and searching. Then, at last, he reached forward and took ahold of Gaster’s hand, holding it between both of his and gently tracing his thumb around the hole in the other skeleton’s palm.

“You know... I  _ really _ w-want to believe you,” Boli barely whispered. “And I've always known you can do  _ anything _ you set your mind to, W-Wingdings Aster. Anything except QUIT.”

The words struck hard and Gaster involuntarily pulled his hand back, pressing it instead to his sternum, suddenly trembling. He had heard something like that once before, but the memory seemed to hover beyond his grasp even as he scrambled for it. No: it was a memory of Portulaca, and suddenly all too clear.

Though it was rare, when her anger flared, it was a wildfire that threatened to burn down all in its wake, quieting only when it had run its course. The recollection was only snapshots in a haze; her eyes, burning orange and fierce, her hand yanking a bottle from his and hurling it across the room, sending glass spraying in all directions - a livid screech of “when will you ever QUIT,” and then nothingness.

Huffing for breath against the hitch in his chest, Gaster stood from the bed, raising his hands at his sides. With the gesture, six projections of hands sprang to life, throwing open the door to the cupboard beside his bed, pulling dust-encrusted, unopened bottles from the shelves, leaving it empty. Swinging on his heel, he stormed off to the bathroom, leaning over the tub as he cracked the lid off and first bottle and upturned it over the drain.

When it was empty, he snatched the bottle from the magical hand and hurled it downwards into the ceramic, shielding his face as shards of glass took flight. Knees shaking, he let himself sink down to a kneel, taking the next bottle and following the same process, though this time once empty he set it down gently in the bottom of the tub.

It seemed only a blink later that a graceful pyramid of bottles sat before him him the tub, and Boli was hovering next to him, alarmed beyond measure, repeating Gaster’s name over and over; pulling his eyes away from the bottles, he looked up to Boli from where he knelt.

Suddenly aware of the aching in his joints that told him he hadn't moved in much longer than the few moments he recalled, Gaster let his weight fall sideways so he sat instead, his spine against the edge of the tub. Burying his face in his palms, he tried to reign in his panicked breathing.

“Are you back?” Boli ventured timidly after another few moments; he could feel the boy's weight settle beside him, his shoulder gently brushing against him. 

“I… believe so,” Gaster managed hoarsely, wrapping his arms around himself as his body began to rattle, filling the air with the faint, eerie noise of bones chiming together. 

Neither skeleton spoke for a painfully long span of time, until at last Boli pushed himself to his feet, disappearing into the bedroom and reappearing a moment later with a plastic bag, which he began to pile the bottles into, placing each one carefully as if trying to make as little noise as possible. When he moved onto sweeping together the pieces of glass with his hand - they had mostly landed in the tub, thankfully - Gaster at last reached up, gingerly touching his fingertips to the boy’s forearm.

“You don’t have to do that, Boli.” Rasping the words, he forced a weary smile as the boy looked down to him. “I will, I just… needed a minute.”

“It’s fine. I want to,” he replied quickly, curtly, not looking away from his task. When Gaster’s hand dropped away from his arm, Boli finished gathering up the larger shards with quick efficiency, vanishing back out of the room within a few minutes.

Returning his face to its cradle in his palms, Gaster awaited the boy’s return - if he did at all. After a few minutes had ticked by, he became increasingly certain that Boli had elected to go off somewhere on his own, but as he put a hand against the edge of the tub to push himself to his feet, Boli reappeared in the doorway, hovering uncertainly. 

Seeing that the scientist was beginning to rise, though, the boy rushed over and offered a hand. Reluctantly accepting the offer of help, Gaster used the leverage to pull himself upright, his knees creaking painfully as he staggered a few times, stretching out his stiff joints with a displeased “urgh.”

“S-so, what was that all about?” The boy sighed at last, turning his back on Gaster and departing into the bedroom. With a hand on the back of his sacrum and a slow gait, the scientist trailed after him. “All the… smashing and dumping. That s-seemed pretty excessive, dont’cha think? Not to mention a huge waste of money.”

“I have thousands of gold sitting in the Royal Science fund,” Gaster muttered distantly, dismissively, despite knowing that it was probably the most unimportant thing to respond to in that moment. 

“‘Ight.” Shrugging his shoulders, Boli laid back down on the bed, flipping through a notebook of unknown origin that he had laid out on the bed, though at first it scarcely caught Gaster’s attention as he found himself inwardly lamenting yet again: 

_ How will I ever make Boli believe what I said? _

 


	54. *YOU'RE not buying this, are you?

“Gaster?” Boli’s voice broke the scientist out of his thoughts and he blinked rapidly, looking over to the boy. “Hey, you gonna stand over there all day? I wanna show you something.”

Realizing only then that he had never seen the journal laid out on the bed before, Gaster ventured forward, leaning over Boli with a frown, his inner turmoil momentarily forgotten.

“What is that?” He muttered, squinting briefly before reaching towards his glasses in the pocket of his labcoat - only to discover that he didn’t have his labcoat on, nor did he remember where he had removed it or left it.

“Issa notebook,” Boli replied sarcastically. “You that blind?”

“Boli,” Gaster warned.

“Hah!” The soft exclamation of laughter was the boy’s only response at first, but then he reached up, guiding Gaster’s hand to the pages. “Here, feel. It’s embroidered with magic, so you ought to be able to read it that way. Neat, huh?”

Closing his sockets briefly to concentrate, he focused on the feel of the magic - the shapes it created. A drawing, he realized; one of a monster. Though not one he was intimately familiar with, he recognized them at once - a long-deceased lizard monster, a Boss Monster, one whose soul had been expended for the humans to create the Barrier. Recoiling involuntarily, Gaster’s hand curled into a fist. 

“Yeah, it’s a lot of that. Boss Monsters, and whether or not they’re deceased. At least, that’s all I’ve looked at s-so far. And, look! You’re in here, too.” The boy flipped ahead a few pages, and as he did so, Gaster laid on the bed beside the boy, propping up his skull in his palm.

Frowning briefly at the “drawing” of him now that he’d moved close enough to see, Gaster absentmindedly stroked his fingers up the crack above his socket to where it ended atop his skull. A very old portrait, likely based off his Lab ID when he had begun his work as a Royal Scientist many decades ago. His skull was flawless, his portrait seeming somehow softer - altogether, he hardly recognized it as himself.

“Thing is, it s-says you died. That’s kinda w-weird, huh? It s-says you died in the razing of the castle, and your soul was lost.”

Flinching away from the memory, Gaster dared to nod his skull. “Yes. Asgore, Toriel and myself - we barely made it out. We would not have, if not for…” trailing off, he reached for the memory, though knowing he had tried to call to mind the events many times before, to no avail. He had only a vague knowledge of what had happened, though recalled many times that the king and queen had refused to discuss it with him.

“There were humans trying to stop us. Someone… someone held them off and we fled. It’s foggy. Regardless, if not for that monster, the entire Dreemurr clan would have been wiped out. As well as, though less importantly, the Windings line, I suppose.”

“I’m guessing that was this guy,” Boli said casually, flipping forward to the next page. “His death description: cut down by humans in the initial strike on the castle, soul harvested.”

Scarcely listening at this point, Gaster stared, frozen, into the eyes of the ancient, battle-scarred monster on the page. “Th-that’s…” he began, but his windpipe closed up, preventing him from saying anything else. 

“The old king, right?” Boli ventured; though his tone was nonchalant, his eyes were interrogatory, measured. 

Beyond Gaster’s knowledge, the boy knew this face already - knew the fear it must strike through the scientist’s chest. This was the monster who had used him, and threatened him with death more times than Boli could estimate. “He looks like one tough customer. ‘Bout as different from Asgore as you can get.”

Nodding his skull, Gaster pushed himself into a sitting position, now searching for an excuse to look elsewhere - or even to be elsewhere. “Boli, where did you get this?” Gaster questioned firmly after a few moments, reaching forward to flip back the page merely so that he wouldn’t have to endure the ghost of the past staring through him a moment longer.

“I just found it,” he replied dismissively, flipping through pages for a moment before stopping, jerking his chin towards the half-blank page. “Look, this last one is about Asgore. But there’s no portrait. I think whoever had this notebook was doing research on all the Boss Monsters. I thought it was pretty interesting, but I’m gonna find whoever it belongs to once I’m done looking.”

“ _ Where  _ did you find it?” Gaster insisted.

“In the corridor outside the throne room,” Boli explained, rolling over onto his back to look up at Gaster where he sat. “I guess whoever dropped it was gonna meet Asgore to finish up the entry, but they never made it. Seems like a kind of important thing to just drop, eh?”

“Yes. An interesting find, to be sure,” Gaster agreed numbly, clearing his throat. “Erm, is Toriel in there, by chance? What does it say about her?”

Pausing briefly, hand frozen above the page as he was about to begin flipping through once more, Boli nodded. “Yeah. She is. It s-said she was believed to have died w-with you and Asgore, but the information was all updated. Here.” Flipping back a few pages, Boli slid the notebook over to Gaster gently. 

Gazing down at the image cast in purple magic, he involuntarily reached a hand down to lay over her figure, curling and uncurling his fingers gently. Immortally perfect, as always. 

What would she think of him now, as he desperately tried to pull out of a decades-long tailspin? Would she be incredulous, or had she any hope for him at all? It was pointless to wonder, Gaster supposed, but still he felt tears threatening to well up in his sockets.

“She’s beautiful,” Boli sighed, closing his sockets and splaying his arms above his head. “Gentle eyes. She looks a lot like Ilea.”

“Yes, she is.” Pulling his hand back to himself, Gaster slid the notebook back to Boli.  “And yes, she does. Biological parent or not, I believe you will have some traits from the monsters who raised you regardless. Unfortunate that you will have many of my traits.”

Uncomfortable with the statement, Boli picked up the notebook and flipped it shut. Eventually shrugging, the boy grinned snidely. “Well, at least I’m manipulative, and that’s pretty useful. Didja see how quick Asgore fell for what I told him?”

“You had no small amount of evidence in your favour, my dear - I wouldn’t exactly call that a victory.”

“Right. You should get all the credit for playing along  _ s-so _ well,” the boy sighed quietly, rolling his eyes. “But no, you “meant it,” right?” Pain needling into his midsection, Gaster uneasily nodded his skull. Boli’s sockets passed over him, narrowed and critical. 

“ _ Uh-huh. _ How many times am I gonna have to tell you I’m not stupid? Do you think I forgot the last time we talked about this? You said the only way for you to quit is if we killed everyone in the Underlab, and I sure as hell am not on board with that. And no amount of convincing is ever,  _ EVER  _ going to change my mind on killing innocent monsters.”

“There is another possibility,” Gaster pointed out after a long hesitation, looking down into his lap. Seeming alerted by the grim tone in the other skeleton’s voice, Boli sat up to look at him, tipping his skull. Looking down into his lap, Gaster fidgeted his hands.

“And what’s that?” The boy prompted impatiently.

“If you took over the Determination project…” Gaster began slowly, tensely, “then I could step down and focus on experiments that endanger no one. There are other-”

“Gaster, I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Boli interrupted, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “I can barely keep myself together on a good day with w-w-what little I do now. You know that. You know that s-some days, I hardly get out of bed. It’s not even a matter of me being… s-squeamish, or s-scared I’ll kill s-someone. I literally don’t think I have the energy to expend to do that, Gaster.”

Gazing back at Boli now, surprising himself with his steadiness, Gaster simply replied, “will you let that stop you when I am dead?”

Stunned into silence, Boli searched the scientist’s expression. And, suddenly, he recalled all those months ago, before their trip to the CORE: Gaster had said then that if he stopped these projects, he would “likely not continue to live.” Next, he found himself forced to wonder just how close his lie to Asgore had hit. Was this only a stepping stone to the scientist ending his life?

The thought sent Boli into tears before he could prepare for it and he covered his face hastily, trembling. “Is that it? Is that w-w-what you’re doing? Trying to put everything in its place before you go? You’ve  _ alw-ways  _ acted like you know how it ends, like you know how much time you have left! Is that all this is? Is that all I  _ am _ !? A pawn to take your place when you leave?”

Blinking away tears that welled up in his eyes at the ferocity and anguish in the boy’s voice, Gaster shook his skull helplessly.  Reaching forward, Gaster gently stroked his fingertips down both of Boli’s arms, looking him in the eyes steadily.  “No… No, Boli,  _ please  _ listen to me. You are so much more than that - you’re brilliant. You understand people in such intimate ways, and do so with grace and effortlessness. Ilea’s mutation occurred under your supervision, thanks to your drive to save her, and I do not believe for a moment that it was mere chance.” 

“You have  _ everything  _ you need to succeed within you, Boli, but you lack what it takes to keep your fire going - that is your  _ only  _ fault, Boli, and that is only in your making. In fact, it is me to blame for the one thing wrong with you. I should have been more certain that you had the magic you needed to operate normally, to-”

“That would have killed Sans, and you know it,” the boy interrupted, though his tone was weak, expression pained. “I already hate that he suffered as much as he did so that I could be born. I hate that Portulaca  _ died  _ for it. Most of all, in every bone, I  _ hate  _ that I’ll never be enough to make that w-worth it. I hate… I hate that the one thing I don’t have is the one thing I need to  _ be  _ w-worth anything.”

“Then you ought to hate me, too.”

“And I do.” Heated, malicious passion lit up Boli’s socket suddenly, his pupil’s green light flickering rapidly. “S-sometimes more than I can even understand.”

Sensing the change in the boy, Gaster leaned in slightly, a sneer set into his skull. “Is that so? That is not what I felt last night,” he jibed in a low, teasing croon. “Particularly not when you were crying out that you love me. I am sure you can see why I am getting mixed signals.”

Flushing immediately, Boli fought against the urge to look away, instead returning Gaster’s lean, nearly closing the gap between them. “You’re disgusting,” he hissed, pulling his mouth into a sneer that matched his creator’s. 

Leaning away abruptly, Gaster shook his skull. “Yes, I am. We were having a serious discussion. My apologies.”

Seeming a little stunned by the scientist’s backpedalling, Boli straightened up as well. The pair fell into an uncertain silence for a few moments before, suddenly looking rather guilty, Boli spoke up again.

“Oh… I guess you figured this out already, but I didn’t get to talk to Asgore about w-w-what you asked me to. He’s having a hard enough time dealing w-with his LV after Integrity. He w-was pretty resistant to discussing anything “human.” I’m s-sorry. I did try.”

Nodding his skull absentmindedly, Gaster reached over to give the boy’s leg a quick, reassuring pat. Truthfully, he’d only half-heard the words; his mind was still on past topics as he silently floundered for a way forward on the path he so desperately wanted to choose. But if he couldn’t even begin, then what? Give up, turn back?  _ No,  _ he growled to himself,  _ not this time. _

“Your only protest regarding taking over the Determination experiments is that you feel you are not physically capable - is that correct?” Gaster asked at last, though he’d lost track of the minutes since the topic had passed by and the pair had sat in silence. 

Looking up from the file that Boli had begun perusing simply for something to do, his mouth flapped open then shut a couple times as he tried to find words. “W-wait, you’re s-serious?” He gaped, hissing at himself and the useless words a few moments later. “I mean, that’s not the  _ only  _ thing, I guess, but I w-was being hypothetical! If you’re honestly cons-sidering it, there’s about two hundred other reasons I could think of!”

“Well, let’s start from the first one, then. Perhaps I could utilize a small amount of my own magical source and fuse it to yours - it could be a permanent fix to your energy levels, with minimal risk, assuming I will not need to expend tremendous magical energy myself… As it is currently, I  _ do  _ have magic to spare, being a Boss Monster and all, so-”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Boli cut in flatly, sighing. 

“Oh. Well, there are psychiatric medications to manage your-”

“It’s not a mental illness, Gaster. I mean, s-sure, I’m fucked up good, but that’s not w-what we’re talking about right now.”

Blinking, admittedly rather frustrated, Gaster briefly rubbed his index fingers against his temples. “I think I am beginning to understand how you feel trying to talk about anything with me.”

Mouth curving snidely, Boli leaned towards Gaster. “Oh, you mean like I’m not listening to you or taking you seriously in the slightest? Or like I’m taking everything you say as a joke, and all it is is witty banter to fill the silence? No, I have  _ no  _ idea what that feels like at all.”

“Boli…” Gaster said the name gently, quietly, gazing into the young skeleton’s resentful sockets. Knowing that an apology would sound empty, he instead nodded his skull in agreement with the words.  “You’re correct - I have done those things to you many times, and I cannot expect you to come along quietly with what I am asking of you. I know I’m not entitled to your cooperation, but I would appreciate you being willing to discuss this with me. If that is not an option, then-”

“You’re acting so w-weird,” muttered Boli, quiet enough that it clearly wasn’t meant as an interruption - or to be acknowledged at all - but Gaster trailed off nonetheless, tipping his skull to the side. 

“Will you elaborate on that, Boli?”

“Just-!” The boy began sharply, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “You get it, don’t you!? You get why I can’t just get my hopes up for you, that I can’t trust this sudden resolve of yours is real for even a second? Can you understand how  _ crushed  _ I’d be if this all turned out to be another one of your games?”

_ No,  _ Gaster realized, studying Boli as he glowered away desolately, seething with emotions the scientist had trouble grasping.  _ When was the last time I had as much at stake as Boli does right now? Perhaps never. I can’t comprehend how this must sit with him.  _ Letting his skull droop, he stared down into his hands folded neatly in his lap. 

“There must be  _ something _ that I can do to prove to you that I am going to become a better person - that I am not trying to trick you.  _ Something, _ ” he persisted, lifting his attention to search Boli’s expression.

Surprised to find that the boy now held a small, flat square case in his hands, Gaster took several moments to identify it - the memories he had entrusted to the boy months ago. He had almost forgotten the exchange. When Boli looked up, his sockets burned with a faraway, fiery resolve. 

“You know, s-sometimes after a hard day w-with you, I look at this thing and think about how different things could have been. I think about how much  _ better  _ you could have been. S-sure, it’d mean I’d never have been born, but it’d be a s-small price to pay if it meant all the lives you took w-were still here and maybe, just  _ maybe,  _ you’d be happy with where you are.”

“But I know nobody can change the past. You can only change where you’re going. If you can prove that your will to do that - your will to determine who you are and what you’ll do with it - is genuine, then that’s when I’ll trust you. But you have to show me that it’s coming from within, from  _ you _ . And to do that-”

Suddenly, it seemed obvious what Boli wanted of him: all or nothing. The gesture of pouring countless miserable nights’ worth of whiskey down the drain had been just that: a gesture. And it wasn’t enough. It wasn't the problem on the boy's mind.

“You think that this is caused by an outside source. You want me to quit experimenting on myself. You want me to quit Determination.”


	55. The Flame is Gone/The Fire Remains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may or may not notice that the chapter count dropped this week. I combined a few of the shorter chapters - nothing was actually deleted/taken down.  
> Welp, that's it. Enjoy.  
>   
>   
> 

“You’re sure you wanna do this?” 

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, cover your eyes. And turn around!”

Chuckling softly, obeying the scolding demands of his creation, Gaster covered his sockets with both hands and turned his back on the door to Chara’s room, waiting for the telltale beeps of numbers being punched into the password-sealed door. There was quite a long silence before Boli at last ventured a hand forward, setting a new code for the door. 

“Okay, you can look now,” Boli spoke up after a few moments longer; by the time Gaster turned around, the boy was leaned casually on the closed door, arms crossed in front of his sternum. “Not to sound cynical or anything, but I’m betting this is going to last about forty-eight hours.”

“And what are you betting?” Gaster crooned, pointedly circling around the topic - his confidence on the matter was shaky at best to begin with, but the boy’s doubt in him only seemed to multiply his uncertainty until it was too much for him to face. It was easier to joke.

“I’m torn between a souljob and a cat,” Boli mused, not sounding as though he was entirely joking, looking up at the ceiling. “I think a pet would be nice, don’t you? Do you like cats?”

Briefly dumbfounded by the answer, Gaster only stared at Boli in response. It wasn’t until the boy cracked a crooked grin that he managed to relax slightly, eventually nodding his skull. “Yes, cats are certainly... something. If that’s something that you would like-”

Trailing off as the boy looked away suddenly, his cheerful expression fading, Gaster instinctively glanced over his shoulder for the cause of Boli’s change in demeanor - of course, there was nothing there. 

“Do you think this is really a good idea, Gaster? We don’t know what might happen if you stop taking Determination all of a sudden. This isn’t like a normal narcotics addiction - monster drugs are magic-based, and they leave systems much more easily, but this is a  _ human  _ substance. We don’t know what it might do to you.”

“I think it will take a little more than withdrawal to finally kill me, Boli.” Though the words were intended to be a joke, the other skeleton only rolled his eyes, leering up at him.

“That’s not funny, stupid. Don’t you think it might be a better idea to cut back gradually? Let’s face it, this is completely uncharted territory for both of us, and even you don’t know what might happen. It’s a better idea to err on the side of caution. Let’s ease you off DT, not just take it away all of a sudden. Please?”

Though knowing logically that Boli’s approach was lower-risk, Gaster still couldn’t help feeling a stirring of frustration at the suggestion.  _ How am I supposed to prove to him I’m going to go through with this if I agree to dragging it out? That seems somehow counterintuitive… Urgh, Void science is more straightforward than this. _

“As you wish,” the scientist mumbled, not sure how long he had paused before finally answering. Judging by Boli’s skeptical expression, one brow arched, it had been a few telltale moments. 

Brushing it off and nodding his skull, Boli stepped away from the door. “Alright. I’ll prepare your doses to cut back accordingly,” he began, pausing to yawn in the middle of his thought before adding, “later. I just w-wanna go back to bed. It’s been a long day - all that shit with Asgore, and then…  _ this.  _ A lot to take in.”

Nodding his agreement, Gaster glanced past Boli to the keypad. “I will wake you when it’s time for Angel and Shade’s injections. I’ll carry you down here to let me into the injections if I must.” Smiling, gently jesting, he leaned down to graze his mouth across the top of Boli’s skull. 

As the skeleton pair returned to the bedroom in silence, Gaster found himself hanging uncertainly by the door as Boli unceremoniously dropped his weight into the bed, face-first into a pillow. There wasn’t much left for him to do but keep searching through folders, he supposed. Picking up a stack from the slowly shrinking to-read pile, he made his way over to the desk opposite the bed and sat, flipping open the first folder.

He found it nigh impossible to concentrate rather immediately, however, and sighed, rubbing his temples. How was he to focus given all that had happened? Yet it seemed too much to even begin thinking about, though he knew the thoughts needed to be sorted out eventually. One question in particular stood out in his mind, however, and he could no longer avoid asking it: where had Chara been through all this? Where were they now? 

Somewhere along the way, Gaster had moved on from thinking they were nothing more than a simple hallucination - they showed him things, told him things that he himself had no way of knowing, and weighed in on events with their own thoughts, feelings, and motivations. So where were they to respond to it all? 

Glancing around the room, empty aside from Boli’s sleeping figure, Gaster stifled a sigh of irritation.  _ I’m not going to get anything done like this. I might as well go clear my head before it’s time for the Determination injections.  _ Standing quietly from where he sat, he stealthily crossed the room, taking one final look at Boli before slipping off down the hallway.

“A cat? He wants a cat?” he mused absently to himself as he wandered down the eerily silent corridors of the Lab towards the front entrance. “Well, I would have to secure the machine rooms, but all-in-all, I suppose this place would benefit from…” trailing off from the muttering beneath his breath, he continued out the automatic doors into the sweltering heat of Hotland. Autopilot took him over and he wandered down to the pier where the Riverperson docked their boat.

Somehow unsurprised to see that they were awaiting him, he climbed onto the boat and stared down into the dark water. “Snowdin, good Doctor Gaster?” They asked him, to which he only responded with an absentminded “hmm.” It seemed answer enough to the monster steering the boat, though, and they started off down the river.

Before Gaster could catch himself, he found himself outside Grillby’s, his hand closed around the door’s handle and ready to pull. Jolting back into reality suddenly, he stepped back from the door, clutching a hand to his sternum. How had he ended up here?

Looking either way down the snowy walkway, he pulled himself away from the storefront, leaning instead on the side of the building, out of sight of the main street. How long had it been? Last time he’d been here… 

He’d told Grillby, “I believe I will see you again soon,” flagrantly flirting with the bartender. Then he’d vanished for months upon months, finding himself caught up in work and… Boli. Had he crossed Grillby’s mind since last he’d seen the man? Finding he preferred not to think too deeply on the answer, he swallowed hard.

There was a reason he’d started drinking at the Lab.

Closing his sockets, Gaster drew the deepest breath he could manage into his chest cavity, trying to cool the anxiety boiling in his soul. It worked only slightly, and he found himself no more prepared for what he had already decided he was meant to do here. His legs had carried him here for a reason; there were loose ends to tie up, and there was no better time.

Pushing himself away from the wall, Gaster circled back around to the front of the building, puffing out his chest and entering the bar confidently. His entrance went unnoticed by the patrons in the mostly empty room, but not by Grillby himself. Even across the bar, he could see the light dance across the flaming monster’s spectacles as he acknowledged the skeleton.

Setting down the glass he had been polishing to free his hands, Grillby signed a greeting to Gaster, though seeming uncertain, before at last following it up with,  _ “it’s been awhile. _ ”

Only nodding agreement, Gaster sauntered to the counter, placing his palms on the surface directly across from Grillby. The tension was palpable in the air as the bartender dipped his head forward slightly, his attention scanning the few customers behind Gaster before his mouth opened in a wide, fiery grin.

“ _ Come to take me up on my offer? I think we could manage something before the dinner rush, _ ” Grillby signed fluidly, ending off by mirroring Gaster’s stance, both hands placed on the counter, their foreheads almost touching now. For an instant, the scientist couldn’t help thinking how easy it would be to fall into his old ways with this monster, waving intimacy around carelessly with no intentions or courage to ever follow through.

_ No...  That is where I went wrong in the first place. That is why  _ it  _ happened. _

“Actually, I’ve come to close up my tab.”

The moment shattered apart instantly and Grillby leaned away, smile vanishing. In the years Gaster had known this monster, he realized, he had never seen him look quite so taken aback save for when the scientist had all but pulled him over the counter those months ago. But it was pushed past quickly, and Grillby nodded once, vanishing back into the kitchen.

Though he didn’t particularly want to make himself comfortable, Gaster still found himself sitting down in his ~~usual~~ old spot while Grillby tracked down what was sure to be a sizeable bill. Looking around the restaurant, Gaster found himself searching for nostalgia - for anything good in this place he had spent drinking away countless nights. 

But instead, all he could think of was the night he had never made it home; Grillby’s heat above him, fighting with his clothes, grinning wanly in triumph. Had he realized just how intoxicated the skeleton was? Or had it been intentional?...

They were questions that Gaster had never wanted to ask himself before, but suddenly it was inevitable. For how heavy of a drinker he had been then, it shouldn’t have been possible for Gaster to find himself in such a state. So that meant… What? That something else, some other drug, had been involved - the truth was too clear, too obvious. It always had been.

Swallowing hard, Gaster stared down at the countertop in front of him. It was too late to brush the topic out of his mind neatly and forget it had come up. When Grillby reappeared, the skeleton found that he couldn’t face him. Caught off guard by the burning in his windpipe and the tepid, vile humiliation in his abdominal cavity, he only stared blankly at the summary of owings that had been placed before him.

“That night,” he spoke before he could think better of it, before he could talk himself out of it. If he never finished the question, the answer would die when he left this place behind for the final time. Lifting his chin to stare Grillby down, to make sure the words were seen, he went on. “What did you give me? And  _ why _ ?”

The flames around Grillby’s face turned pallid at the words, the orange fading away to white as his hands shook in front of his chest. In the end, though, he only responded with, “ _ I’m sorry. _ ” But it was enough: a confirmation, a confession, full of guilt and fear. 

Breath snatched from Gaster’s throat, he looked back down to the bill in front of him. After so many years of quietly tucking away the reality, he was unsurprised to find he felt very little about it - for the time being. Standing without another word, Gaster took the sheet that displayed his owings and neatly folded it, tucking it away into the pocket of his jacket.

“I will send you a cheque. Goodbye, Grillby.” Turning his back on the bartender abruptly, he started towards the door, though stopped in his tracks at the sound of a weak rasping from the other monster, as if he was attempting in vain to form words. Turning back around, Gaster searched his featureless face. 

“ _ I’m sorry, _ ” Grillby repeated the gesture.  _ “I never stopped regretting it. _ ”

For a moment, Gaster wanted a great many things. He wanted to yell, to throw punches. To tell the bartender he should take a moment to value his life - that he ought to turn Grillby to dust in return for what had happened all those years ago. Closing his sockets, clenching his fists at his sides, the scientist slowly shook his skull. The rage turned inwards and he laughed, dark and bitter noise that filled the room. 

“ _ There was no other way, hm? I’m far too damaged to be had any other way. _ ” He signed the words before he could stop himself, though his hands had begun to shake before he could finish the sentence.  _ “You’re not the only one who thought that. Nor the first, nor last. And you’re right. _ ”

Questions gleamed behind Grillby’s glasses, but he shook his head in denial of the words, reaching towards Gaster as if asking him to stay before quickly signing, “ _ no, that’s not true. I never should have... What I did was… _ ” There was a long pause, then Grillby let his hands drop and looked down to the countertop. He seemed to have no words. 

_ “I was stupid,”  _ he finished after it seemed minutes had passed, looking down to his hands wreathed in flames that rested on the countertop.

“Goodbye, Grillby,” Gaster said again, though his soul was twisting itself into knots and his feet resisted his movement towards the door. What was the point of staying? What was the point of knowing what else this monster had to say? Nothing could matter enough to change anything. “And good luck. I do not believe I will see you again.”

Stepping out into the cold, Gaster looked up to the cavern ceiling far overhead; the chilled air stung against the moisture that had fallen onto his cheekbones, and only then did he realize he’d allowed tears to escape his sockets. 

It wasn’t an easy matter to simply extinguish the festering flame that had gone ignored for so long, but as Gaster walked down the pathway back the way he’d came, he found himself somehow lighter as he looked ahead. Not so long ago, he would have considered the acceptance of what had happened as anything but a step forward, for all the wretched feelings it sewed in his gut, but now… 

_ There is more than one way to move ahead,  _ he told himself, squaring his shoulders against the cold as he headed back towards the Riverperson’s dock - and home.  _ And, no matter where I go from here, I am not looking back at what happened that night again. This was the closest to closure I will get - and in the meantime, I have my own nights to beg forgiveness for.  _

_ Oh, Boli…  I understand that I do not deserve your forgiveness yet. Perhaps I never will. But I will do what it takes. _


	56. Boli's Determination?

 

Thanks to the Riverperson having waited for Gaster’s return, seeming to ever know when they were needed, the scientist found himself back in the shelter of his Lab before his emotions could catch up with him. But as the automatic doors slid shut behind him, he knew instantly that he wasn’t ahead of them any longer.

Clutching at his sternum as pressure crashed in on his chest, he instinctively reached back to latch the lock on the automatic door before retreating from the view to the outdoors. It was rare for him to ever feel this way, he realized - normally, only an encounter with Asgore left him feeling quite this rattled, and even that wasn’t a genuine emotional response, he knew. It was only instinctive fear breaking through the walls he had built up for his own good.

When was the last time he’d stepped outside of the narrow, rigid box of comfort he’d defined for himself? Was this feeling a positive sign, or the opposite, a sign that things were going to become worse? All questions that he couldn’t answer himself. Or perhaps he could, but was too drained to try. Wrapping himself in a hug with his own arms, he left the front lobby behind and made his way back to the bedroom where he’d left Boli.

Peering in, unsurprised to find him still soundly asleep, Gaster found a faint smile coming onto his face. The unsettling feeling of reality setting in on him was forgotten for a few brief moments as he looked upon the little skeleton burrowed under the covers, but the peace soon passed. Retrieving the bill from Grillby’s from his pocket, he spread it out on the work desk. A few thousand Gold - right around what he had anticipated. 

Sighing heavily, the scientist quickly scribbled a cheque, getting the task out of the way before pushing both the papers into a drawer - it would be a few days at the very least before he wanted to even consider having the payment delivered. He didn’t want to think about any of it any longer. 

Glancing at the alarm clock from where he stood briefly, Gaster tucked his hands behind his tailbone, frowning contemplatively. It wasn’t much over two hours since he’d left - had Boli gotten enough rest?  _ Is there such a thing as enough rest?  _ Sighing at the thought, he left the bedroom behind, instead headed to the kitchen.

Throwing together dinner for the subjects was a fairly quick task as usual, but it was already beginning to get later in the evening. Perhaps Boli was right - perhaps it wasn't feasible to put any more responsibility on him.

_ If only hiring another assistant was at all possible,  _ Gaster thought, though it was frivolous. Even forgetting the nature of their current experiments, he knew better than to think he would ever find anyone he was willing to work with aside from Boli - though it was a bit sickening to recall the only reason he worked so easily with the boy was due to his complacency. 

Every thought in itself felt different now. Nothing had truly changed, he knew, and yet everything had. 

Once he’d set up a pot on the hot plate, leaving the canned soup to heat to a boil, Gaster moved onto brewing coffee as an offering to Boli when he went to awaken the boy. Finally, he set the hot plate down to its lowest setting and headed back to the bedroom, mug in hand, still stirring in the mountain of sugar he'd added. By now he'd watched Boli dump a steady stream of sugar into his mug enough times to know the right amount.

“Boli, pet, it's time to go to work!” Gaster proclaimed in a falsely cheerful voice as he entered the bedroom, fixing a smile onto his face. The boy didn't stir for a long moment, and the scientist felt inexplicable fear roll over in his chest. “Boli?”

“Ugh,” was the only response, the boy sitting up and looking over to the scientist. Without another noise, he reached towards the mug in Gaster’s hand, his fingers curling and uncurling in a gesture that seemed to say “gimme.”

Smiling much more genuinely now, Gaster relinquished the mug to him and perched lightly on the edge of the bed. “How was your nap?” 

“Ugh,” Boli said again, swallowing back a quarter of his coffee in one go. “Never long enough. What'd I miss?”

Briefly, Gaster found himself stuck on his words. He didn't recall ever mentioning Grillby to the boy, much less the nature of their relationship. Now, it seemed like so much to try to summarize, too daunting to form words - what could be say?

“ _ Yes, I went to pay off the monster who took advantage of me a half decade ago?”  _ Ha - not a chance. Or perhaps… could it be that simple?

“I paid off my tab at the bar in Snowdin.” Holding his breath for a moment, he quickly added, “and settled my quarrel with the man who runs it who once… did something rather awful that I could not let stand.” Cursing himself for ducking out of the truth last second, he pretended to be very fascinated with his hands.

“Shit, he okay?” Now looking very awake, Boli inspected Gaster wide-eyed.

Almost flinching, Gaster clenched his jaw tightly, merely nodding.  _ Who was I kidding. He would not believe I suffered at someone else’s hands. Was it even genuine suffering? There was a time it was a cherished, though shameful memory, was there not?  I… cannot remember any more. _

Closing his sockets, swallowing an unexpected surge of fear, he repeated the nod. Even trying to land in close proximity to the topic had been enough, he decided. It wasn't worth it.

Brow furrowing with concern, Boli scooched to the edge of the bed, looking up at Gaster - only hoping his face was reasonably expressionless, the scientist stood up and donned a fresh lab coat as a distraction. 

“You're shaking,” Boli pointed out as Gaster hugged his arms around himself, pulling shut his lab coat with the motion. “C’mon, you can tell me what happened. You know nothing would s-surprise me, or make me think differently of-”

“Liar.” The word fell out of Gaster’s mouth and he swore at himself silently. 

“You didn't… didn't KILL him, did you?” Boli gaped, standing up to move closer to Gaster. “W-we gotta check your LV, w-we don't know if-”

Boiling over with emotions he couldn't identify blended into one ugly mess, Gaster rounded on the boy. “As if what he took from me was worth his life!” He hurled the words nearly at full volume, clutching his hands over his mouth an instant later. 

Boli reeled away at the shout, his hands raising in front of his face as if expecting to be struck - by then, Gaster had already backed away several paces, his spine hitting the wall beside the door as he put distance between himself and the boy. Sinking his face into his palms, he mumbled a muffled apology.

Knowing the outburst had revealed all too much, he couldn't bring himself to look at the boy; also knowing they had tasks to be working on, he let his hands drop and turned abruptly, marching his way out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. He didn't check to see if Boli had followed until he'd already reached the kitchen and began to serve the bubbling soup into bowls for the subjects. 

He was watching from the door, sockets wide and watching like prey that had nowhere to hide. It ached to see. Choking back tears that threatened his paper thin disguise, Gaster finished up the tray and turned to face Boli, forcing his expression into an unnatural smile.

“After you, pet.” He tried to chirp the words but instead they came out husky and broken.  _ Failure, failure, failure. When did I become such a poor actor? _

Not budging from the doorway as directed, Boli stared up at Gaster instead. “Please talk to me,” he pleaded, stepping forward gingerly, placing his feet lightly as if hardly finding the courage to move. 

For the briefest moment, Gaster felt inexplicably angry at the boy’s caution - it was an overreaction! Then, realizing his anger, he deflated.  _ I just shouted at him, and Gods know I act erratically and use violence inappropriately at the best of times. And even just then, I was prepared to… urgh. _

“I will, Boli - cross my soul. But I cannot now.” Avoiding the boy’s sockets now, knowing he was undoubtedly displeased with the response, Gaster stepped past him, heading towards the elevator. “I believe it would hold us up, and we do not have time for that at the moment,” Gaster continued as the skeletal pair walked through the corridors briskly, Boli breathing a bit faster as he struggled to keep up. 

“sure. whatever. we both know youre not going to tell me.”

Surprised by the bleakness and apparent indifference in his voice, Gaster glanced over his shoulder at the boy’s dark sockets. He wondered: if he told Boli that just then, he'd sounded a lot like Sans, would it sting? There was only one way of knowing, but he decided not to find out.

“I fall short of a great many virtues, Boli, but I am a man of my word. After we are done with these injections, I will tell you whatever you want to know.”

Reaching the elevator with these words, Gaster pushed open the false wall and stepped in, trying to ignore Boli as he could feel the boy’s attention trained on him, studying him in an unbearably intent fashion. Nonetheless, he managed to ignore the stare for almost a full minute before he could bear it no longer.

“What’s the problem, Boli?” He tried to speak softly, with trepidation, but instead snapped the words. This time, though, the other skeleton didn’t flinch. 

“I’m just thinking,” he sighed in response, his sockets still inspecting Gaster even as he looked away once more. “I’ve never been able to tell whether or not you’re lying to me. How could I ever know you’re not spoon-feeding me lies every time we have a conversation like the one at the CORE? Or like the one earlier today? How do I know you’ve ever spoken a true word to me in my life?”

Frowning down at Boli now, Gaster tipped his skull to the side. It was an interesting question, bordering on philosophical, but he knew that Boli wasn’t interested in the philosophy of it all. It was hard to bite down on a roundabout, pointless answer of something along the lines of, “what is truth, really? It’s relative, and you can never really know if anyone’s lying unless you read minds,” the scientist turned to face Boli, snapping the fingers on his left hand and conjuring up a magical hand to take the tray of food from his grip.

Hands freed, he knelt in front of Boli, holding his stare steadily. “I can only give you my solemn word. The rest is up to you. What to reject, what to believe, how to  _ feel _ \- it’s all up to you.”

A quiet memory from half a century ago crept to mind unbidden and Gaster felt pain twinge in his chest like a spark of electricity. His father had said something similar to him long ago. Though the details blurred and he couldn’t recall how old he must have been nor why the otherwise rather stoic and unrevealing skeleton who’d fathered him would have said such a thing, the exchange had stayed in his mind even to this day, less words than a simple knowledge fastened to his soul.

“...Boli, when I was old enough to begin to understand, my parents - well, my… my mother. She told me why I had been born. My… “purpose.” She also told me how I destroyed her life by existing. My father, though, once tried to tell me that no one can decide my purpose for me nor make me feel any one way. He was.. A good man.” 

Swallowing hard, he averted his eyes from Boli’s as the boy scrutinized him, waiting for him to go on. “Do you recall? My parents married in order to “bring together” the skeleton clans.”

“Yeah. I remember. Of course I remember.” Boli’s voice was softer now, as was his stare, and he brought forward his hand, gingerly brushing his fingertips across the crack beneath Gaster’s eye. “Things like that, I w-won’t forget about you, ever. But why are you telling me this again…?”

Closing the socket which Boli’s fingers brushed, Gaster reached up his own hand to lay it on the back of the boy’s. “It took me a very long time to understand what my father said to me then - long after he passed away, in fact... When I realized how few skeletons remained after the war, I was… almost relieved. I fled home at a young age to become a Royal Scientist, but part of me always felt I had abandoned my purpose for existing at all. _ ” _

“Ultimately, I had to realize there is no simple “why.” I am not… the person who I was intended to be. Fate pointed in the opposite direction; all I had and all I was - all I’m going to be - was thrust into my hands. I had to come to terms with the fact there is no simple path already laid out to follow. I must forage my own way forward. As do you.”

“We are of the same kind, Boli. We are determined, you and I. So however you wish to feel, think, act… is what you ought to do, I believe. I am done playing games with you. It is up to you now.”

For several moments, the boy only stared at Gaster, dumbfounded and agape. Briefly, Gaster thought that the boy was going to make one of his infamous passionate, clumsy gestures and tipped his skull in anticipation of an ill-aimed kiss. But instead, Boli suddenly pulled away when the elevator door slid open, running off into the Underlab, shouting all the way.

“That’s it, Gaster, that’s  _ it!  _ The Determination! I can do it all - everything you asked - I just need the  _ Determination _ !”


	57. Local Man Rediscovers Emotion. More at 10

It was mere instants after Boli had taken off that the meaning of the boy’s words clicked with Gaster, and though he almost immediately pursued the other monster, he failed to catch up with him before he had reached Chara’s room. When he did reach the door, seeing it closed sent crippling fear through his core.

If Boli truly intended to take a dose of Determination behind the sealed door...! A hundred scenarios played out in Gaster’s mind in an instant, none of them good.

His thoughts soon slowed once more, though, as he raised his fists to pound at the door and it swung away from the impact, revealing itself to be left ajar in the first place. Inside, Boli was measuring a vial of Determination, his face creased with grim concentration.

In attempt to disguise how ruffled he had been, Gaster cleared his throat and smoothed down the front of his shirt before speaking. “You cannot do that, Boli,” he wound up bursting out with the words regardless, crossing the room and lifting his hands towards the vial as if to take it.  “You have seen what it can do, both under normal circumstances with Angel and under extremes with Ilea! You must not endanger yourself in such a way! I… I cannot allow it.”

Boli stepped back enough avoid Gaster’s reach long enough to cap the vial in his hands before his attention turned to the other skeleton, an uncharacteristically bitter grin stretching his mouth. To complete the look, his skull tipped to the side, inquisitive though condescending. “So all that stuff you just said about me deciding my own fate was _what,_ then? Another ruse, huh? Predictable.”

The boy’s sockets hooded with a casual expression and he tossed the vial up in the air, catching it again as it fell back downwards. “Too bad you already handed over full access to the DT. Not much you can do about it.”

Sockets growing wide, Gaster wrapped his hands around his sternum and squeezed tight. _He sounds… very much like me right now. Is he trying to make a point? Or is he testing my reaction? Gods, I don’t know how would be best to handle this…_

Words lodged stubbornly within his throat and he could only watch Boli move on with his tasks, immobile. Meanwhile, Boli never spared the scientist a glance, retrieving the DT doses for Angel and Shade from the storage cooler and preparing the syringes with almost lazy movements.

Behind the exterior, though, the boy was only waiting for the facade to be seen past. In truth, he was waiting for the scientist to put his foot down, likely in the form of violence, but he knew he couldn’t let on his uncertainty.  

“Please,” Gaster managed as the boy turned towards the door. “You… you cannot, Boli. It is too much of a risk to your fragile soul. I cannot afford to lose you. It would-”

“Yeah, right, I know. I have to be here to make sure you die when you have to. And then, somehow, I have to keep all this going when you’re gone. Guess what, Gaster: the mere _thought_ of that pretty much paralyzes me. But I’m done being helpless and just waiting for the next stone to be thrown. You said it’s up to me? W-well. This is me taking control.”

“And if I die… fine. But I’m not going to stay in this s-standstill any longer. You can’t stop me, Gaster.”

Blinking back frustrated tears, Gaster flexed his hands at his sides, his knuckles creaking. “Please…” he tried again, but there were no more arguments to be had; the boy had corralled him into submission with his very own words. And, somewhere in his mind he dared not tread, where thoughts went unacknowledged, he felt… relieved.

Boli turned to face the scientist now, his stance steady, stare unwavering. “You’re not getting in my way,” he spoke slowly, each word hard and unbending.

 _Oh, how the tables have tabled,_ Gaster thought, fighting the urge to let his shoulders hunch inwards, to let his stance deflate and make him appear as small as he felt. Yet, it was equally difficult not to do the opposite and puff himself out instead; in the end he found himself only fidgeting awkwardly, avoiding looking directly at the boy.

“Can we at least agree upon some terms, if you absolutely cannot be dissuaded?” He asked at last in a rather small voice, taking an equally small step towards Boli. “If not for your own safety, for my peace of mind? Can I ask that of you?”

“Depends. What terms?”

Studying the boy’s stoic face, Gaster pulled in a deep, preparing breath. “May I see your dosage, first?” Trying to keep his tone delicate, he shuffled another pace closer to Boli.

“‘Course.” Holding the vial he’d measured out to Gaster, he smirked crookedly, though the scientist failed to notice the reassuring expression as he immediately became very focused instead on the measurements etched into the glass vial.

“This is…” he began, squinting rather hard. He still had yet to locate his labcoat - and, by extension, his glasses - but it still wasn’t difficult to discern the lack of volume in the tube. “Well, this is… what? Your appropriate dose according to your weight… cut in half?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Boli agreed, grinning toothily. “I’m not _you,_ Gaster - I’m not being reckless. I know what’s safe to give myself… In theory.”  Trying his best not to cringe at the passive-aggressive words, Gaster relinquished the vial back to the boy. “Anything else, Oh-Overprotective-One?”

“I do not find your attitude right now very endearing,” Gaster spat flatly, but received nothing but a roll of the boy’s pupils in response. Turning towards the enhanced stasis chamber that held Chara’s soul shard rather than looking at the boy, he nodded cautiously.

“I would like to be present for your treatments,” he continued with much more trepidation now, wringing his hands. “At least, for the first few? And as for the initial one, would you be willing to administer it in the Soul Repair Bay? We both know I could not heal you if something went awry. Please, we do not know what might-”

“Yeah, alright, sounds reasonable,” Boli cut in, nodding his skull patiently. “All very reasonable. That it?”

Looking tentatively towards Boli, Gaster felt himself beginning to relax. He had been expecting an ugly fight about the entire thing, but it seemed that the less the boy was pushed, the less he pushed back. After all the conflict they had waged between them, Gaster supposed it was difficult not to anticipate yet more infighting. But, in retrospect, nearly every fight they’d had was caused by an overabundance of his own control.

 _I may have used trust as a ruse before, but… I am beginning to see how true, how founded, it is. He_ is _growing wiser with each passing day - he’s not the overreactive, immature child that often reveals itself when we trade blows.  He doesn’t need me to hold his hand on these things any longer…_

Not sure whether what he felt was pride or wistfulness,  he tried his best to ignore the emotions altogether, instead bowing ever-so-slightly towards Boli before straightening up. “Yes, that is all. Erm… Shall we get on with taking care of the other subjects, now?”

Boli looked back at Gaster rather blankly for a few moments, stunned for the exact reason Gaster had been moments before - _that’s it? He’s not gonna start yelling? Well, this is… uh, kinda nice._

“Yeah, let’s get to it. Wanna split up? I’ll get Shade, you get Angel?”

At the mere mention of Shade, Gaster felt his soul drop deeper into his chest cavity. Knowing the mortification he felt likely made its way to his face in some measure, he looked back towards Chara’s soul shard, cursing himself silently. He didn’t want to pay a visit to Shade, either, given their positively venomous exchange earlier, but what if the ghost let on to Boli they knew about the fact they’d shared souls?

Boli would undoubtedly feel betrayed, and rightfully so - it hadn’t been any of the ghost’s business, and it seemed rather obvious to Gaster now that it had been a profoundly thoughtless transgression of trust to have shared the information with anyone, no matter how heavily the concerns weighed on his mind.

“Why not vice-versa?” Gaster suggested lightly, not turning back to face Boli. “It is of no concern to me, of course, but Angel has been on Determination for quite some time. Perhaps you will work your magic touch on her, hm?”

Rather anxious at the mere prospect of being alone in a room with Angel for any amount of time, much less an amount of time that involved sticking around to observe her hallucinations, Boli inspected the back of Gaster’s skull. Why did it seem like he was trying to prevent him from seeing Shade? ...Had he caught onto something?

Briefly, Boli considered proactively defending himself - that last night had changed everything, and his feelings for Shade had only been trying to ease a loneliness that had arisen from the scientist’s distance in the first place. Finding he didn’t have the courage, he cleared his throat, deciding to use honesty on another front instead.

“Angel kind of scares me,” he confessed, scuffing one foot back and forth on the stone beneath him.

Gaster turned to look at Boli at last, stifling an impatient sigh. _I suppose it is in my power as his boss to make that an order rather than a suggestion… but I cannot prevent Boli from finding out my mistake forever, regardless. Sooner or later, it will come out. Better that he hears it from me._

“...I must warn you, Shade knows what happened last night,” Gaster blurted out as quickly as he could, rubbing his palm across his face. “I was overwhelmed and, as a result, idiotic, and went seeking advice from them early this morning. I am sorry.”

“You did _what?_ ” Boli burst out, clenching his teeth together against the indignation twining through his ribs.

“I’m sorry,” Gaster repeated, hiding his sockets behind his hand altogether and letting his skull droop. “I just said it was idiotic. I was wrong. I cannot do more than that.”

Studying Gaster closely, Boli narrowed his sockets. Either he was doing a _very_ thorough job of acting ashamed, or… There was even a faint blush rising in his cheekbones as he dropped his hand again, looking around the room for a distraction. Briefly, it occurred to Boli that he rarely saw the scientist have a normal response to embarrassment. It was… interesting.

“...You know w-what? In that case, I don’t think I want to see Shade right now. You win, I’ll take Angel instead. We’ll talk about this later. Their food is probably getting cold by now. Let’s just get on with this.”

Sighing deeply in relief at the boy’s relative lack of a reaction, Gaster nodded his skull. Biting down on his instinct to apologize yet again, he instead crossed the room to the boy, accepting Shade’s dose from the boy with a professional dip of his head.

For the first time, Boli and Gaster entered the prisoner’s ward together, splitting up halfway down the hall. Before Gaster could reach Shade’s door, though, Boli called after him, almost timidly.

“Gaster?”

Stopping before he could knock on the door to Shade’s room since he couldn’t simply let himself in without his keys, which seemed to be missing - _where is that god damn labcoat? -_ Gaster turned back to face Boli. “Yes, pet?”

“...Thanks for telling me what happened with Shade. Little things like that - actually being _honest_  for once _-_  they make me think I can believe in you, you know? ...Maybe just a tiny bit.”

Unexpectedly, joy washed over Gaster and he felt a smile light up his face, his sockets nearly threatening to fill with tears. The reaction caught him off guard and, before he could say something in return, Boli disappeared into Angel’s room, leaving him grinning like a fool alone in the hall.

How long had it been since he felt he’d done something right in his miserable years? Even something as small as a truth offered freely, intended to avoid causing hurt… It filled Gaster with curious warmth and he relished in it, closing his sockets for a moment to allow himself to truly _feel_ it.

Taking a deep breath and holding the warmth tightly in his soul, he turned to Shade’s door and knocked firmly. He knew it would not last.


	58. A Ghost's Dignity

 

Silence hung thickly in the air as Gaster rushed through Shade’s treatment, freeing their soul, injecting it, and returning it to the chamber without so much as a greeting. It was over in minutes and Gaster sought to leave as quickly as possible, leaving their dinner on the table and backtracking to the door. As he opened the door to let himself out, though, he stopped at the sound of a faint hissing from behind him.

Already knowing what to expect when he turned back, he prepared to leap aside from the acid tears Shade had just conjured, but instead he found them leaned over the edge of the bed, shedding tears onto the floor. Not a magical attack, Gaster realized, but an emotional overflow. Soul sinking, the scientist gently shut the door, turning back to the ghost.

Somehow, though it had been many months ago now, it seemed like only yesterday now that he’d seen them hunched sobbing in the snow, their emotions laid bare as they were now. He had no more idea what to do now than he did then.

“So that's it. You got your way.” Their voice cracked as they formed the words and the light from their soul flickered suddenly, a lapse in its constant light. “He loves you, you own him. You won your game. But you won't even take a second to rub it in my face again, huh? I'm not worth the effort anymore.”

Shade's soul wavered once again and their form scattered waves of darkness that disappeared into their mattress; they shrank inwards on themselves, looking almost as if about to physically fall to pieces.

“Not worth a single fuckin thing.”

Frozen in the doorway, Gaster watched on in horror as the ghost hunched forward over the bed’s edge once more, an alien choking noise rising from their mouth; a fine mist sprayed across the stone, bright crimson against grey. They scarcely seemed to notice, however, their glowing eyes staring straight ahead, blankly. 

“I want this to be over, Gaster. I'm tired,” they rasped, an appendage rising from their side to wipe over their mouth, clearing the red effluent away. 

Chest rising and falling rapidly in panic, Gaster crossed the room and bent over the soul chamber, scrolling through the readings with trembling hands. Was it happening again? Was Shade rejecting the Determination as Ilea had? Why, all of a sudden?

But there was no change in their vitals, no telltale signs of pain from the ghost. Their eyes closed and they slumped onto their side, their midsection heaving with sobs, tears hissing down into the mattress. 

Shaking, Gaster lightly set himself down on the bed by their head, putting a hand gingerly on their side. At the touch they seemed to become yet more inconsolable, gasping for breath amongst their weeping. Pulling away again, Gaster looked towards the door.

Even at the best of times, he didn't know how to handle these types of emotions in others - though he felt similarly helpless quite often, still he found that any words of reassurance eluded him. 

“I could do it myself, you wouldn't need to risk raising your LV - yeah, I know all about that - just…” Shade went on after a minute to control their breathing. They looked too exhausted to continue crying now, sitting up to face Gaster. “I’d just need my soul loose again. I'm done, you know?...”

_ “Done?” What is happening? This doesn't seem correct. They were through much worse years ago, when they were coming to me for experiments in order to become corporeal… What I did then was practically torture physically and most certainly psychologically. So why now? Why are they giving up? _

Shifting uneasily where he sat, Gaster reached towards the soul chamber and lifted it into his lap, almost cradling it. “I think it is time for you to go home, Shade,” he mused, numb, placing a hand on either of the glass chamber lightly.

“Home?” They echoed, inspecting Gaster rather closely now. 

Nodding, the scientist stood up from the bed, placing the chamber against Shade’s side. He gave his skull a jerk towards the door, wringing his now-empty hands together. “Come now - say your farewells to Ilea and Angel, and we will be off.”

Shade’s midsection slowly shifted around the soul chamber to pull it back into themselves rather like magnetic putty absorbing a ball bearing, but they didn't move aside from that, their eyes round and dumbstruck. 

“You're…. Sending me away?”

“I am letting you go, Shade.”

“Semantics.”

Admittedly stunned, Gaster only stared - as patiently as he could - at the ghost as, even after minutes passed and he knew his message had sunk in, they remained where they were, expression unexpectedly blank. Unsure of what to say or do to spurn them into motion, the scientist merely cleared his windpipe awkwardly, tapping his foot on the stone beneath it. 

“...What about Boli?” Shade ventured after a solid two minutes of silence, still not looking directly at Gaster, but instead past him.

“You can say your farewells to him, as well. He should be with Angel. Though, I'm surprised he's in your thoughts if I truly sullied him so.”

For a moment the ghost’s distant expression flickered with  _ something  _ gone too quickly to discern, but then they rose from the bed, floating high in the air so their face was more or less level with Gaster’s. “No. I mean… what's going to happen to him? I know Ilea's safe - Angel, I could care less, she murdered a child. But Boli…”

“...I have a hand in what you're doing to the poor kid. I'd never sleep at night if I left him like this. I need… I need to know what your intentions with him are. You're one hell of a cold bastard, but even you could understand why I'm scared for him, yeah?” 

“...Yes,” Gaster agreed after a moment of studying Shade’s resolute expression, silently raking through his thoughts for what he'd said earlier. It was a blur now, only their parting words and his own standing out in his memory. How much had he said? Furthermore, how much of that had been truthful? 

Minutes passed, Gaster trying to pull together scraps of thoughts as they fell between his fingers. Winding up outside Grillby’s after blinking, and now finding himself unable to recall a conversation that had happened only that morning… 

_ Well, it seems I've lost what little of my mind I had left.  _ Avoiding looking at Shade, the scientist shook his skull wearily. 

“If you have nothing to say, that tells me enough,” Shade piped up after another lingering moment, floating back the equivalent of a pace. “And I'm not going anywhere. I'm not taking more onto my conscience on top of everything. And I'm  _ not _ done with DT. Only I get to give up on me.”

“Rather than going free with a heavy mind, you would prefer to die and be every bit as unable to help as if you had lived on?” Gaster mused, studying Shade with a mixture of admiration and pity. “...How noble, Shade. I'm surprised at you. Where is your usual indifference?”

“Same place as your usual pointless lies and rambling, I guess.” Though their words themselves sounded to be an attack, they were soft and cool. “...I decided. I ain't gonna be like that anymore. You know how many things in my life I've just shrugged at? Pretty much everything. One way or another, I… I don't wanna do that anymore, ya know? And if my “indifference” is only gonna end once I'm dead, it's for the better anyway, yeah?”

The light within Shade flickered out for a moment before seeming to redouble, their form swelling wider as they puffed out their figurative chest. “And that's that. So tell me the truth. What’s gonna happen to Boli?”

Wrenching anxiety twisted through Gaster’s soul at the thought of his talk with Boli a mere hour ago now - being unable to dissuade the boy from Determination treatments, and ultimately vowing to release his own grip on his creation altogether. Thinking of it was one thing, but to speak the events out loud… 

“That is up to him now - same for you, Shade. Your conviction - your will to live or die a changed person is admirable indeed.” Bowing deeply to the ghost, Gaster clasped his hands before his chest. “I would like to tell you that you can live without fearing for him. If I could do one thing right by you, I would promise never to harm him for the rest of my days.”

“...However few that may be.”

Standing straight once more, Gaster looked around the room with feigned distractedness.  _ I really must stop letting words like that slip out - I don't want to cause any false alarm. Or justified alarm, either, for that matter... _

“You know somethin’ I don't?” Shade wondered aloud, their eyes narrowing slightly.

“Oh, that's both insignificant and improbable, wouldn't you say, you clever hau-” Gaster’s jaw shut on the final word, a smile that had briefly appeared on his face immediately vanishing. “-ghost,” he said instead, looking back towards the door.

“Uh-huh. So what is it? Are you sick? Are you turning yourself in to Asgore soon? Did you and Boli agree on a day he takes you out?”

Biting at his tongue, his windpipe burning, Gaster shook his skull. “...I just know it will be over soon. I don't know when, or how, but… I know it will not be much longer. And until then, I must do everything in my power to right any wrongs I have committed… if I am at all able.”

“I no longer care for the “too little, too late” rhetoric. I will straighten my path before its end. Perhaps when I reach whatever afterlife exists, I might tell the gods that I…  _ tried. _ ”

For quite some time, Shade gazed into Gaster’s averted sockets, saying nothing. At last, they floated forward enough to reach him with a dark appendage which was placed gently on his shoulder, giving him a pat. “I know how hard it must be to make that choice. You'll say goodbye to Ilea before you go, won't you? She still loves you, y’know. For some ungodly reason.”

Though realizing that his point had been slightly misunderstood, Gaster nodded his skill uneasily. Clearly, Shade had perceived his words as an intention to end his own life - though, there was a chance they were right. And, in truth, perhaps it was better if that was what they believed. He didn't know what else to tell them either way.

The pair were silent for a few moments yet again, though not for long before the sound of quiet footsteps shuffling outside the door reached them.  _ Boli,  _ Gaster realized, feeling himself brighten involuntarily when his voice sounded from the other side of the door.

“Gaster?” The boy called timidly, quietly. “I'm going ahead to the Soul Repair Bay, okay? I'll wait there.”

The scientist didn't realize that he was smiling until the expression rapidly vanished at the boy's words. So, that was it - he wouldn't take no for an answer, wouldn't hesitate. Bunching up the hem of his labcoat in his fists, he called out before he could mentally talk himself out of it. “One moment, I'll be right along!” 

Looking to Shade, the skeleton dipped his head, stepping away from their “hand” which still rested on his shoulder. “One final thing, Shade. I would like you to know that I am sorry - and you were right about one thing: Were I the world’s one hope, it might as well remain damned.”

“However… The fate of this world is changing like dawn takes the night, and I am losing my grip… though, it does not upset me. You went wrong there - and on one more front. Shade, you are worth more than can be measured. You are worth…”

Stopping, the scientist clasped his fingers through the hole in his palm, shaking his skull. “...Worth more than I have any right to. You always have been, Shade.”

Agape, Shade stared into Gaster’s vacant, pained sockets as he swayed slightly on his feet, grasping at his palm ever more tightly. “Take care of him when I…”

“Gaster! You coming or not? It's gonna go dark s-soon!”

His words died away at the interruption and Gaster turned abruptly away from Shade at the call, pulling open the door, but he couldn't quite escape the room without hearing muted words from behind him.

He wasn't positive, but sure thought he'd heard them say…

“Thank-you.”

 


	59. Gay, gayer, yet gayer

The time for reflection was already slipping between his fingers, Boli realized as he arrived in the quiet of the Soul Repair Bay alone, ahead of Gaster, who had hung back a moment longer for reasons he hadn’t explained. As he placed the syringe intended for him onto the stand which normally held surgical tools, now cleared off, he found himself beginning to tremble.

_ Is this really what I want? Is this what I have to do to become… better?  _ Glancing over to the injection yet again, Boli fished the memory disk’s case out of his pocket and turned it in his hands a few times. 

_ Is this… What's expected of me? Is this what I'm intended to do? ...Gaster told me I have to decide for myself. But how am I supposed to know? I don't…  _ know  _ anything!  _

Closing his hand around the disk case, tightening until the plastic creaked, he looked pleadingly towards the door as he detected movement out of the corner of his eye. Sure  enough, Gaster had appeared, his hands shoved into the pockets of his labcoat, sockets shadowed with exhaustion beyond a simple lack of sleep. 

Reflexively tensing and pretending to have his attention elsewhere upon seeing the expression, Boli slid the disk case back into his pocket. Perhaps he was wrong to fall into the instinct, wrong to react how he’d learned was best.

If the scientist was truly dedicated to changing, Boli realized, he would soon find all his trodden paths useless; everything he had learned to avoid would be shuffled around, and he would know as little as he had started out with. The thought of things staying the way they had always been seemed more of a comfort.

“How long has Shade had… feelings for you, Boli?” 

The words sent fear jolting down his spine, skull to pelvis in an instant, simultaneously burning and freezing and Boli bit down hard on his tongue, relishing the pain and the sour taste in his mouth. “For me?” he echoed in the tiniest squeak, all he could manage, unable to look up from his hands folded in his lap.

“Were you not aware?” Gaster wondered aloud, his expression remaining unchanged. “Understandable. They're subtle in their feelings, after all. But I know them - and for them to express as much concern for you as they have, I do not doubt my conclusion.”

Shutting his jaw tightly on any words that might try to escape, Boli turned in his spot seated on the raised bed in the centre of the room, fluffing the pillow resting at its head for something to occupy his shaking hands. He could feel tears looming in his sockets, fear echoing around in his empty chest. 

“... _ Oh. _ ” 

Involuntarily flinching away from the sound of realization from Gaster, Boli stared hard at the pillow next to him, giving the wrinkled pillowcase a final pat. 

“Well, all this makes much more sense now,” Gaster mused, stalking lightly across the room and leaning his hands on either side of Boli’s knees, trapping the boy into facing him. “I must admit, I expected this to happen with Asgore or even Ilea, but never  _ them _ .”

Trying to fight against the voice in his head screaming to struggle away from Gaster and run, Boli swallowed hard and shrugged his shoulders.  _ Why did this have to happen  _ now?  _ It doesn't even matter anymore. I'm going to suffer and make them suffer for something that doesn't even fucking matter. Why can't I be better at staying neutral, like him? Why can't I be more like him?... _

“Well… tell me, Boli: Is that still how you feel? Or did I manage to change your mind last night?”

Air itself seemed to tangle up in Boli's windpipe and he struggled to stifle the gasping, hyperventilating breaths that tried to start up - even if it meant not breathing at all. The echo of a memory dug into him, scattering what little collectiveness he still had into nothingness. Familiar words, from the night the scientist had nearly forced his soul onto the boy. 

No longer trying to fight his emotions, Boli let himself break down into tears, fighting for words and breath between sobs. Squeezing his sockets shut tightly, he pushed his hands hard against his mouth as if it could silence him, but the whimpering escaped nonetheless; for the first time he could hear himself, hear how pathetic he sounded.   _ No wonder he doesn't want to be around me when I'm like this.  _

Though he was no longer fully aware of the room around him, he soon realized that he could feel arms around him, gently rocking back and forth like a swaying tide. Gasping and hiccuping for breath, he lifted his ear slightly towards Gaster’s mouth, closer to the gentle “shh, shh,” syllable he repeated. 

“It is okay, Boli, I am not upset,” Gaster soothed after he thought the boy had calmed enough to hear his words. “I cherish you all the same. My pet. It is okay.”

Reaching up and smearing tears away from his eyes, Boli leaned away from Gaster to inspect his face, distrustful. He could see nothing but warmth and sorrow there, however much he searched, however much he expected to see something else. However much he, perhaps,  _ wanted  _ to find something else.

“I am sorry for my choice of words. I did not consider their effect. Are you alright?”

“Cherish me?” Boli mumbled, scarcely parting his teeth to enunciate. Now not able to look Gaster directly in the sockets, he instead reached up to wipe at a damp greenish stain he'd left on the front of Gaster’s labcoat from tears.

“Yes. That is what I said.”

“W… W-what's wrong w-with you?”

For a moment Gaster merely looked dumbfounded, but then he was beaming, quashing a laugh that tried to escape. “Historians will ask for centuries, with no answer, I'm afraid.” 

Blinking, Boli clenched his jaw. “That's not funny, Gaster, this is s-serious. You're acting weird.”

“I am not sure what you would like me to say, Boli. Perhaps that I feel weight lifting from me. That I am starting to see a little bit of hope - a light at the end of the tunnel, if you so please,” Gaster said, amiable all the while. “Or, I am very,  _ very _ disillusioned and rather taken with said delusion. Does it matter?”

“Kinda. Yeah.”

“Well, I am unsure as of yet. I will keep you updated.” Voice drier now, the smile faded from Gaster’s face and he shot a backwards glance towards where Boli had placed his injection. “Shall I go first?”

Nodding, Boli watched silently as Gaster retrieved his newly reduced dose from the pocket of his labcoat, glancing over it with a much more characteristic expression - cold concentration, distance. He said nothing, though, lifting a hand to his sternum and pulling his soul into the open. 

Though Gaster mostly turned away and seemed to make a point to shield his soul from view with his hand, Boli still found himself glimpsing something  _ off _ about the scientist’s soul. Craning to attempt at a better view, he squinted rather hard at the pale, eerie light that shed from the Boss Soul. Something about it was greenish - but only for a moment. Then back, then gone again. 

“A soul monitor?” Boli wondered aloud, now recalling the green indicator light when he'd affixed a monitor to Ilea’s soul - he’d seen Angel’s just minutes ago, as well. “When did you put that on?”

“That is why I dawdled behind in the Underlab a moment longer.” Gaster sounded tired when he explained, lifting his shirt high past his sternum to allow his soul to pass back into the empty space in his chest. “Just now, to more directly answer your question. It seems only logical to keep a better eye on myself given the potential risks of this… adjustment.”

“W-what about me? Don’t I need one, too?” 

“That is at your discretion,” said Gaster, smoothing down the front of his shirt with slow strokes.

“Tell me what you think. Please.”

“I think... yes.”

Biting at his thumbtip anxiously, Boli lifted his spare hand to his chest and revealed his soul to the room, watching it hover and flicker arbitrarily. “Okay. W-well, w-we'll… s-s…” stopping for a moment to mentally rearrange his sentence, he looked towards the injection on the table. “If I make it through this. Not much point otherwise, huh.” 

It wasn't a question, Gaster knew, but still he nodded absentmindedly. Realizing Boli was staring at him as if awaiting something, the scientist forced himself into motion, setting his used needle beside the one intended for Boli and picking that up instead, placing it next to the boy's leg and giving it a small pat. 

“W-would you?” Boli asked only half the question, picking the syringe up and offering it back to Gaster, the plastic rattling against his shaking bone digits. To his surprise, the scientist recoiled slightly, wringing his hands.

“And why should I be more capable than you?” He tried not to snap, but did anyways. 

“Because your ability to distance yourself and not feel is twenty times stronger than mine,” Boli said rather flatly, not thinking of the effect that blurting out the fact might have.

Gaster said nothing for a time, staring at the injection in his hands, his mind floundering against thoughts thick, cold and heavy, trying to pull him down. Finally, after what felt like an age, he simply said, “I would prefer not to.” With this, he offered it back to Boli.

Sighing impatiently, Boli snatched it away and put it next to him once again. “You're really that s-sure I'm gonna die, huh?” He hissed, suddenly standing up and walking over to the terminal, busying himself with entering keystrokes in a steady stream, seeming perfectly comfortable with the inputs. 

Brow arching, Gaster tipped his skull. “And what are you doing now?” He asked skeptically.

“Precautions. You programmed this thing, and that means I know it's thorough. It should respond to a code for…” trailing off in incoherent mumbling clearly directed at himself, he pecked at the keyboard for a few more moments. “There. A command to automatically switch to the highest safe setting if my vitals look bad.”

“...You just  _ wrote _ code for my terminal?” Gaster wondered, heading over to look over the screen. “Hm. Yes, that should execute perfectly. Well done.”

Only rolling his eyes in response, Boli returned to his spot on the table and picked up the syringe, removing the cap at last. The normally bright lights in his sockets vanished now and he looked towards Gaster, his permanent smirk quivering at the corners.

“You still owe me the story about the guy from the bar earlier,” Boli said, tense, poorly feigned cheerfulness injected into his voice. 

“Yes, of course.” Smiling weakly, soul thumping, Gaster stepped slowly to the side of the table. “After. I promise. Do not look so grim, M.V Boli. Everything will be just fine. I will take care of you.”

_ Empty words,  _ Gaster scolded himself, struggling to look Boli in the eye. He knew - they both knew - that if Determination was fated to snatch the boy's life away, not a thing could stop it. Leaning his forehead on Boli’s clavicle, Gaster breathed in the scent of green apples, exhaling long and slow as if trying to push the tension from himself through his windpipe.

When Boli moved next, Gaster knew that he was picking up the syringe, knew that when he felt hands brushing his shirt that he was injecting the needle into his soul in the limited space between their chests. He didn't move, though, until he heard the syringe being set back down, and even then it was only to brush his mouth lightly across the side of the boy's skull, reassuring.

Boli's weight against him doubled as he leaned forward heavily, his breathing slower. An indistinct “hmmmmn” noise pressed out of him. Pain, or?

“What'd’ja say earlier? Cherish? You cherish me?” He hummed, his voice sluggish, though sounding rather content. Stunned, Gaster only nodded, knowing Boli would feel the motion. “Yeah… I like that, I think. Say it again?”

Perplexed, the scientist ignored the instinct to lean back so he could inspect the other skeleton, instead nodding once more. “I cherish you, Boli.  _ Cherish  _ you. Truly. I adore you.”

Another low sound, almost a moan, came from Boli, but he said nothing else. A moment later, Gaster felt the boy's body slip downwards, limp. When he stepped back, the boy slumped over onto his side, sockets closed; it took a moment for Gaster to realize that there was nothing wrong with him; he'd simply fallen soundly asleep, with no other apparent effect.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Gaster picked up the used injection and shifted it in his hands before setting it aside. 

“Okay… yes, you must be so tired, my dear. You rest, now.” Gaster mused aloud, though knowing he wouldn't be heard. “I will be here.”


	60. *You Encounter Boli.

The unfamiliar shape of the Soul Repair Bay’s four walls greeted Boli with the deep darkness the underground possessed at night when he opened his sockets. The only light cutting through the shadow came from the terminal’s screen, still opened to the command prompt. The slightest green tinge from the colored text fell onto the Royal Scientist where he half-sat slumped at the desk, forehead resting on the surface, his labcoat removed and draped across his shoulders as a makeshift blanket. Air rattled in his windpipe; snoring faintly, peacefully asleep as Boli had been moments ago.

Sitting up, Boli looked blearily at his dark surroundings. How had they both ended up here? It took him several moments to recall, and when he did, he turned instinctively towards the side table as if to confirm his memory. Two empty injections - his, Gaster’s.  _ Wait, but then… what happened? DT never did much to Shade, and we didn’t get much chance to find out about Ilea, but me… I definitely should have had a reaction of some sort. But…? _

Hearing the sound of fabric flapping through the air, Boli’s attention jerked back to where Gaster slept. A scream caught somewhere in the boy’s throat as the labcoat once held up by the scientist’s shoulders fell limply to the tile, sending plumes of dust curling away from the impact. Swallowing down the sound of horror, Boli felt a grim grin widen his mouth.

“W-wow. Creative. Kinda predictable, don’tcha think?” He said aloud to the empty room, scooching to the edge of the table and waiting patiently, silently, for what was to come. The room remained still and quiet for so long that the boy nearly questioned his surety - nearly. 

“Boli doesn’t even flinch.” An unfamiliar voice broke the quiet and the boy jumped, his hands clenching around the edge of his seat. “You think that it will not happen? Gaster…”

“Gaster is falling apart. Gaster is dying.” 

Drawing a deep breath and pushing out his chest, Boli shook his skull firmly. “Sorry, but I know how this DT thing works already. You show me what I’m most afraid of, I cry and plead a little, then I wake up. It’s not real.”

“Boli is skeptical, but his voice is shaking,” the strange voice narrated - then, they laughed. Snidely, madly. “He’s only partly right, though, isn’t he?”

Unnerved, the skeleton shifted his weight where he sat. “Right about what?” he blurted before it could occur to him that it was foolish to engage the foreign voice.

“About it not being  _ real,  _ of course!”

The room flashed around Boli suddenly, becoming nearly too bright to see, but he managed to make out a tall figure bathed in light before him, screaming in anguish, unable to stand against the blinding magic unleashed against them. He knew he had heard the sound before. The body before him seared to dust and when the magic died away, he was left in the dark once again. Now, though, he was not alone.

Though he’d never seen so much as a photograph of the fallen human, no descriptions ever recited to him, still he knew. The child with wicked eyes who now stood before him was Chara. They stood only an inch or two shorter than him, eyes focused on the skeleton, before their mouth slowly twisted into an unnatural grin.

“It  _ is  _ real, Boli. It  _ will  _ happen. But not by your hands. This world’s fate - HIS fate - has already been DETERMINED. No matter when. No matter how. W.D. Gaster will fall into the CORE and scatter across the dimensions. This world… the world that he tore apart, that he tried to fix… it will forget him. It is one of many constants of this world. You can never SAVE him.”

For the briefest second Boli thought that they were not speaking to him. Still fighting against the initial panic of the image he had been shown moments ago, Boli managed to slowly nod his skull. It made sense suddenly - why the scientist had returned from the CORE weighted so heavily. He, too, knew - on some level - the cause of his death. How, exactly, Boli figured he would never know.

“Operating under the assumption you’re not a dirty liar,” Boli began with a sigh, digging deep into himself for fearlessness. Instead, oddly, he found coolness, distance. “I know he’s going to die someday. We all do. I was just born, and I know I’m going to die, too. Not today, though. But you…?”

The child seemed so dumbfounded by his words that they only shook their head. As they opened their mouth to speak once more, Boli spoke over them. “You’re a real smart kid, huh? You notice  _ everything.  _ You like to observe. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re dead. So slow down a sec’ - you got nowhere better to be. Answer me a question. You’re…  _ really _ Chara, aren’t you?”

The madness faded somewhat from the fallen human’s eyes and they studied Boli for some time. They never answered verbally, but their head inclined slightly in a nod after minutes and they looked away, pulling at a chain around their neck. A golden locket fell from the collar of their shirt at the tug and they fiddled with the heart-shaped pendant, not looking back to Boli when they at last cleared their throat to speak.

“Whatever’s left of Chara, I guess,” they agreed, “though at this point I am not sure what that is. A bundle of memories, waiting to be forgotten. Waiting for the rest to consume them.”

Too rapt to fully absorb the words, Boli nodded eagerly. “I knew it! Ilea really  _ did  _ s-see you. Man, I… I have s-so many questions. W-why did you want her to take your s-soul? W-why’d you only appear to her? How are you here?”

For awhile Chara looked around the room quietly, avoiding his gaze. Then, they shook their head. “You are not what I was expecting.” They deflected the mountain of inquiries with the aloof words, expression unreadable.

“S-same to you,” said Boli, almost gently. “...It’s okay if you don’t want to answer any more of my questions. I understand - you don’t even know me. But I think… you must be pretty lonely. W-why don’t we just chat, instead? W-whatever you’d like to talk about.

The dumbstruck expression returned to Chara’s face, but then they laughed darkly, shaking their head. “ _ Monsters,  _ I swear! I almost killed your “lover,” and sweet, sweet Ilea too, and you’re still trying to help  _ me?  _ I can’t believe you’re so  _ stupid. _ ”

Slightly jarred by the turnaround in their demeanor, Boli only managed to flap his jaw open and shut uselessly a few times before their words spilled onwards, punctuated with a demented peal of laughter. 

“It’s  _ idiotic!  _ Your empathy, your kindness and willingness to open yourselves up - it’s ALWAYS your downfall! If ever a truly evil monster existed, they could destroy humanity, destroy EVERYTHING, but you just don’t have the capacity, do you? You just can’t see that the law of this world, the constant above all else, is KILL or BE KILLED. I thought  _ he  _ was the one that we needed… Failure.  _ Failure. _ ”

Beginning to feel like he had leapt into shark-infested water far, far over his skull, Boli swallowed hard and forced himself into motion, falling into what he knew to do. He tried to put a hand on Chara’s shoulder, but it fell through like thin air. Their image flickered and wavered, and for an instant the clearest part of them was their soul, dull red and near-lifeless. Though a thousand questions buzzed in his skull, he held his tongue. His soul cried out to him to comfort them - even if he didn’t know how.

“Shh… Chara,” he began slowly, tremulously. “Is this… about the Barrier?” They flinched at the question, glaring off to the side now. “It’s okay, Chara. You weren’t put here to break the Barrier - it wasn’t meant to be. You have to let go of that. You haven’t failed.” His words were a shot in the dark, but he could tell he’d struck a nerve.

“No, STUPID, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Chara snarled, fury lighting up in their eyes. “It brought me here in the first place, It had plans for us! I thought the fall would kill me - no more plans. But didn’t die then - yet, even in death... I am here. “C-h-a-r-a.” It doesn’t matter when. It doesn’t matter where. I am here. Because my Determination is not my own.”

Trailing off, panting, Chara glanced to Boli’s face before suddenly straightening up, their eyes darting around with nothing short of frantic paranoia. “You… have to forget I said any of that.”

Utterly overwhelmed by the piles of cryptic information he’d been presented with, Boli found himself laughing dryly, smirking. “I dunno what the heck you’re talking about anyway, kid, so don’t w-worry about it.” 

Seeming surprised by the aloof disinterest the skeleton responded with, Chara’s eyes grew rather wide - though, only for a moment before they scoffed. “Wow. Another “smiley trashbag.” Flowey will love you.” 

“S-sorry? W-what’d you just call me?”

“Smiley trashbag. Not my words.”

Unable to help laughing at the rather childish nickname, Boli shrugged sheepishly. “Yeah, okay, that’s accurate. And Flow… Flowey? W-what’s a Flowey?”

Chara studied the monster, not amused in the slightest, before at last shaking their head. “I really can't tell you. I already said too much about the future. You shouldn't know anything about it at all.”

“About that. How do  _ you  _ know any of that stuff?”

Sighing impatiently, Chara looked away. How many times had they been asked this? Well - not once, not by  _ this _ monster. “I've done this all before. And when this world is created again, it will happen all over. I fall. I fail. I die, but I don't. And then people forget my name.”

“I don't think your parents will ever forget your name, Chara - or Ilea. And for what it's worth, neither will I.” Boli wasn't sure if he sounded reassuring, but he knew he had to at least try.

Seeming at a loss for what to do or say in response to the soft words, the child looked around their surroundings for a few moments, tucking hair behind their ears and brushing a hand down their striped shirt a few times. When they stepped back slightly from Boli, the boy took it as a signal to give them space and returned to his seat beneath the contraption in the centre of the room. 

A few uncomfortable minutes passed, Boli trying to slowly untangle the words he’d been  handed in an enormous mess of ambiguity, before he at last came to a question that fell out of his mouth before he could think better of it. “When you said you almost killed my… “lover.” Is that s-something that happens in the future, too, or-?”

“No, stupid. I’m talking about Gaster. I didn’t  _ mean  _ to hurt him, but we messed up.  _ I _ ... messed up. I thought he could stand up to It, but he’s…” Chara trailed off for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. “Well. He’s just as much a monster as all the others. It’s easy to forget.”

Nodding his agreement, Boli almost allowed his mind to be swept away by thoughts of Gaster, but he forced himself to focus on what was important. ““It” being… The Determination, I’m guessing?” He ventured. “Hmm. I had a theory that you had to  _ know  _ the monster to appear to them, but you being here with me proves that wrong. It’s got me thinking maybe Determination has a mind of its own, huh?...”

Though the words were rhetorical, Chara flinched once again; though, it was less of a flinch and more as if they conflicted with reality for a moment. Unsure if he had truly seen what he had seen - their entire image distorting and flickering for an instant - Boli held his tongue. But when they turned to him, their eyes faraway and empty, he knew that he’d misstepped. Massively.

Dread unfurled in his chest cavity like a dark fog and he tried to grin wider, his hands shaking slightly as he held them up towards Chara, though unsure what the gesture was intended to be. “H...hey, it’s okay, kid, you don’t gotta-”

“Are you going to get in my way?” They interrupted him. Their face was beginning to distort, red fluid dripping from their mouth and eyes as they shambled forward a pace. “Are you going to play hero?” They stopped a moment, their vacant eyes looking him up and down. “M.V Boli. 1 ATK. 1 DEF. Tied for the easiest enemy. This little skeleton doesn’t have any fight in him.”

“Chara,  _ w-w-wait,  _ you don’t have to-” 

But there was no hesitation left in their actions, no signs that the child he had seen mere moments ago still resided in the thing that approached. He caught a glimpse of metal at the cuff of their sleeve and felt terror beginning to thump through him, far more real than any he had ever felt. This was neither monster nor human he stared down now. There was no reason, no restraint. As they drew closer, he closed his sockets and awaited the inevitable.

Seconds later, Boli heard the distinct, resounding  _ crunch _ of bone being struck with crushing force. At first, he thought that was it; he was dust now, faster than he could even feel the pain. But he heard Chara’s twisted voice once more and it occurred to him that, somehow, it wasn’t over.

“ _ You! _ ” They bellowed in a half-human, garbled voice. Boli scarcely dared to look, though when he did he found his view blocked by a bone creature - difficult to identify from the rear, but when it collapsed to the ground and Boli could see its full profile, he promptly recognized it as a Gaster Blaster. Its snout was flayed open from the attack, flickering as the magic that held it together wavered. 

Before Boli could react, movement flickered in the corner of his eye and he felt a hand hoist him by the back of his shirt; a dark chasm opened up in the floor and he felt himself thrown forward into the empty space. A drawn-out shriek poured from Boli at the sensation of falling, falling, falling… when there was no air left in him, he struggled to suck breath in, but the force of his descent compressed his chest too tightly. His awareness beginning to spin away, he fumbled around in the empty space in search of his savior. Or anyone at all.

“Gaster?” He managed to wheeze out with the single puff of air finally drew in. 

More time than he could estimate passed before the space around him stopped rushing at last. He found himself alone in darkness, his feet settled on what seemed to be nothing. Swinging around to where he thought the scientist might be, he found only more emptiness. There was no sound, no sign that anything else existed at all. Nothing but darkness.

“Gaster!” Boli called out, cupping his hands around his mouth in hopes his voice would carry farther, though it seemed obvious the sound had nowhere to go but nothingness. Nobody came. He tried again, and again, until his windpipe ached and his voice cracked and died away in his throat. Fear threatened to paralyze him, reaching up his ankles and trying to root him to the spot. Simultaneously, the same fear spurned him to start moving.

Not knowing what else to do, Boli began to walk.


	61. Phoenix

_ How long have I been walking now?  _ Boli wondered to himself in the silence, watching his feet fall onto empty space as he ventured forth into curtains of darkness.  _ What's going on back in the real world? Do I just look like I'm asleep? Is Gaster awake? Or is he still here, too? _

_...Maybe if I try hard enough, I'll be able to break through with something. My windpipe feels okay now - I should be able to call again.  _

Drawing in a deep breath, Boli tipped his head back to the direction he assumed was up, surrounding his mouth with his hands as he had before. “Gaster! Gaaaaaaaasteeeeer! Just wake me up! I'm stuck, wake me up!”

Panting to regain his breath, Boli let his hands drop back to his sides. “No… ‘course not,” he sighed heavily, allowing his skull to hang in disappointment. “W-well! Maybe there's actually a way out.”

Forcing his optimism into renewal - something he could scarcely manage - he looked around his non-existent surroundings. There was no feasible way to get his bearings or know for certain there was a way forward or backward. 

_ It's hopeless,  _ he realized suddenly, and the weight of the thought drained the energy from him.  _ It doesn't matter what I do either way. I'm going to be here as long as I have to be here. I hate it! ...but I can't do anything. _ For the moment, all he wanted to do was sink down and curl up in a ball and wait for the end. 

“Gaster…” He sighed. Weakly, pathetically. Ways that he was beyond sick of sounding. “I'm too tired. I’m sorry. I have to stop.”

Pacing endlessly forth into the abyss had kept his mind somewhat busy up until then, but when he at last halted and lowered his weight into a seated position, the last few moments of horror with the fallen child played in his head again and again. Chara’s scarcely recognizable face as they shambled towards him, knife in hand, loomed in his mind and he hugged his arms around himself, shuddering. 

If Gaster hadn’t been there to block the attack… Though Boli was uncertain if he could actually die in this unconscious realm he seemed to be trapped in, he very much preferred not to think about it. But would they have really done it? The attack had seemed to come from nowhere, as far as he could tell.

_ No, I'm missing something. They told me so much, but I'm too dumb to just put together. I know there was a reason for them to attack me. They're not just a bad kid like Gaster tries to write them off as. They're… They're?...  _

“Not in control!” Boli burst out to the silence. “Of course! It's so  _ obvious!  _ There's still something,  _ someone,  _ pulling the strings. That's _ gotta  _ be why they attacked me - because I was getting too close to the truth!”

Energy regained, Boli clambered back to his feet. “If I can just find them again! I can learn the truth! I can help them!” Something about the dead silence of his surroundings compelled him to speak his thoughts aloud and he went on, though the excitement faded from his voice now. “...Not that I know w-which way is back.  _ Ugh.  _ Maybe I blew my chance.”

“Well, maybe Gaster went in the opposite direction, s-so he’s too far to hear, but....” Pulling in a deep breath, he prepared to call out to Chara, but before he could, an unfamiliar voice interrupted him in a callous, harsh tone.

“Don’t do that.” 

Startling, Boli swung around to look behind him, nearly falling back onto his tailbone upon finding that something else had finally appeared along with him - the first sign of life he’d seen in the emptiness. 

At first, the boy thought that they were some sort of fire monster, but he had never seen one quite like it before. It had no structure beneath the rich orange outline that made up its tall, distinctly humanoid form. It took a moment for Boli to place what it reminded him of - magical strings, like the ones that made up Pip’s writing in their journal. Two tongues of flames leapt from its… face? The fire fanned outwards like wings; when they briefly flicked out to be replaced by two spheres of blackness, Boli realized that the flames were its eyes, and it was blinking at him slowly, intently.

The creature brought to mind the word “phoenix”; the grace and power of it nearly compelled him to bow, but truthfully he was too afraid to pull his attention away from its eyes. “W-What are you?” he managed to whisper, daring to let his eyes dart around his surroundings long enough to make sure it was the only one of its kind that had appeared. 

It didn’t answer, instead straightening up, its attention seeming to pass around their surroundings as it swivelled, taking in the emptiness. Unsure if he had been heard, Boli asked once again, but this time it only looked to him, its figure dancing and flickering, before slowly shaking its head from side to side.

“I know you can understand me, you just talked,” Boli insisted, tapping his index fingers together uneasily. “Are you a monster? You’re definitely not a human.”

Still it said nothing, moving back ever so slightly. The orange iridescence around it seemed to be fading away. Desperate now, Boli held both his hands towards the creature, pleading.

“W-w-wait, don’t go, please. I, I just… I don’t know w-why I’m here. I don’t even know  _ w-where  _ here is!” 

The creature stopped its retreat abruptly, the wisps of orange magic at its sides rising up in what seemed to be a shrug, then coiling around its chest as if crossing its arms. Unable to deny his frustration at the gesture, Boli mirrored its stance and lifted his chin, scowling. 

“Fine. Chara will tell me,” he snapped, turning his back to the other and pulling in a deep breath. He had no intention to really call out, though - and, sure enough, a moment later orange wrapped around the corners of his vision, putting an odd, tingling hand over his mouth. Instinctively, he twisted away and found himself moving through the tangles of magic, easily freeing himself. 

_ Oh, right. Orange magic. Duh.  _ Shaking his skull at himself, Boli apprehensively awaited the phoenix’s next move. It looked around once again, its frame seeming to flicker more severely, as if… trembling? Feeling rather guilty now, Boli grimaced.  _ This thing is  _ really  _ scared of Chara, huh? Can it even get hurt by them? Is it even alive? _

“Okay, fine, I won’t call them.” Sighing, Boli looked off into the darkness. “Well? Did you just show up to make sure I didn’t do that? You might as well go now. I already have about five hundred questions that aren’t going to get answered, just go ahead and add yourself to that list.”

In the blink of an eye, the creature moved in on him and plucked something out of his pocket, floating through him and putting a couple metres of distance between them. Before Boli could process what it had taken, it was holding the memory disk out in front of them at arm’s length, clicking open the case. Foolishly, the boy dove at the creature, knowing full well that he would fall straight through.

Stumbling to regain his balance, he swung around to face it once again. “That’s not yours!” he spat, raising a hand over his head and conjuring a magical bone that he hurled in the phoenix’s direction. It merely slipped towards the attack, turning its head to watch it fall out of sight when it passed through. 

“I want to see him.” It spoke far more softly than the first time Boli had heard its voice, its attention focused on the glowing disk between its hands. Freezing in the process of striking yet again, Boli’s risen hand dropped back to his side.

“Gaster?” The boy asked.

The phoenix paused, nodded. 

“Who  _ are  _ you?” Boli asked again, fiercer now, though he couldn’t bring himself to launch another attack on the creature to enforce his demand for an answer. Not now.

It didn’t respond, its attention fully trained on the memory disk now. Frowning, confused, Boli shifted slightly closer. “Uh, that’s not how it w-works. There’s this machine that extracts the magic into images, and-”

“Shhhh,” the phoenix shushed him firmly, its attention not swaying. It raised a hand to the disk with certainty after a moment, pulling outwards; strings of white light fell out into its hand like threads and then spread outwards, bathing the pair’s surroundings in white light that slowly shifted red in hue, changing shape and solidifying until it had created the image of a low platform, surrounded by magma, though the distance was still dark and featureless - an ever-constant reminder of the nothingness.

“How the hell did you-?” Boli began, but found himself interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Dark.” 

Swinging around, Boli squinted against the brightness of magical lamps falling harshly on orange stone of Hotland. Several metres away, a small cluster of monsters - Boli took a moment to count; 6 - stood. Three stood in a small circle around the Royal Scientist, and two slightly further off, surveying quietly.

“Darker, yet darker…” The Royal Scientist looked like a wreck, even compared to the varying degrees of disarray Boli had seen him in already. Dark purple rings of exhaustion sat beneath his sockets; his labcoat, normally well-maintained and shining white, was tattered and streaked. A curious madness and menace burned in his sockets, however - and that was all Boli found himself able to focus on, even from the distance at which he stood.

Gaster’s focus was trained intently on a handheld machine he clutched in his grip as if it were the only thing that he had to his name. “The darkness. Keeps growing. Shadows cutting deeper… photon readings negative.” He looked up now, surveying the trio of monsters - construction workers, by the looks of their clothing. An unnatural though unassuming grin came across his face and he stood up straighter, turning to address the monsters that stood farther off from the group.

“This next experiment seems very… very interesting. What do you two think?”

Shuddering, Boli dared to step closer - the first monster Gaster addressed was easy to identify: Asgore. Even in “peasant” clothing, he stood out in any crowd with his towering horns. The other, though, Boli had never seen before. Bipedal and bespectacled, with a finely-polished shell upon his back.

_ Gerson!  _ The answer came to Boli abruptly and he brightened. Though, only for a moment, before he heard the tortoise monster quietly mutter to Asgore, two simple words - “ain’t natural.” Asgore didn’t seem to hear, however, seeming more preoccupied by the Royal Scientist, who had begun to pace, a low, ecstatic laugh dancing out of his mouth. 

Uneasily, Boli shot a sidelong glance towards the phoenix which still accompanied him, watching the scene intently. He had seen Gaster like this enough times - he knew the insanity that lay beneath the unusual, distant light in the other skeleton’s sockets. This was not endearing. This was not something one who knew Gaster would  _ want  _ to see.

Without warning, a Gaster Blaster suddenly appeared several feet above the group of monsters. In an instant, Gerson took off with speed that Boli would not have expected from the monster; Asgore lifted a paw towards the scientist, but before he could move further, a magical hand conjured up grabbed him firmly and yanked him hard enough to sweep him off his feet, hauling the king off the platform altogether until he stood safely on the a bridge that spanned the magma. Instinctively, Boli opened his mouth to call out a warning, though he knew that there was nothing to be done for these long-dead monsters.

Averting his eyes from the lilac-tinted magic beam that the Blaster fired, Boli instead looked to the creature beside him. Stiffening at the sound of a scream, his attention snapped back immediately - no monster would survive against  _ that  _ long enough to cry out. Sure enough, the attack had not struck anyone, but rather, the ground between them. 

It gave way rapidly, swallowing the trio of workers in one gulp. The chasm showed no sign of slowing its collapse. Remaining perfectly cool and stoic, the Royal Scientist lifted a hand that summoned his Blaster close enough to climb onto it, lifting off the ground mere moments before it vanished from beneath his feet.

When the ground gave way beneath where Boli stood as well, he braced himself to begin falling, but his feet remained grounded even as the entire platform had all but crumbled away, leaving magma flowing thickly into the unending abyss below. All was still now, aside from Gaster sauntering the way he had come down the bridge, one hand resting on his Blaster as if congratulating it for its good job. As he vanished into the distance, Boli slowly turned his attention back to the phoenix, his jaw hanging open.

“I… have so many questions.”

It said nothing, closing the disk back into its case and holding it out to Boli. When the boy took it, it turned its attention in the direction Gaster had vanished in, somehow managing to appear melancholy. “Look around,” it sighed at last.

The landscape of Hotland was convoluted, Boli knew - and this was before the elevator system had been built, he assumed - but still, he turned in a full circle, trying to get his bearings. When it dawned upon him, he stepped uneasily away from the crack in earth before him. 

“This… this is where the CORE was built,” he realized, awed. “This opening…? It’s a straight drop into the Void.” Slowly, he turned to look to his companion, tensing at its slow, stoic nod of confirmation. 

Quaking, Boli turned away from the abyss, finding himself more content to look into the darkness behind him. “Those monsters… They fell  _ into  _ the Void?”

The phoenix nodded again, even slower now. It looked drained.

“Are you… one of them?” he asked, carefully. It was difficult to get a read on the other, as it used words so sparingly and its face was nearly featureless. It shook its head now, calmly. “W-what… happened to them? W-what happens when a monster falls into the Void?”

It was silent for quite some time now before it sank down into a seated position, gazing up at Boli. “No one knows. No one remembers that they ought to find out.”

The light around the other creature burned dimmer; it seemed its energy was beginning to weaken, the conversation and the magic to bring the memory disk to life having exhausted it. Instinctively, Boli reached forward, gently placing a hand on its arm. 

“Are you going to be okay?” He asked anxiously.

“I need to rest,” it rasped, hunching over. “But I will survive.”

Nodding, Boli hesitantly knelt beside them, looking out at their surroundings. The landscape of Hotland had all but faded away now. “Can I do anything? W-would healing magic do anything to you?”

It shook its head back and forth. Slowly, patiently. Letting silence fall over them, Boli sank so that he was fully seated, surprised as the creature next to him wreathed closer, flooding his senses with a smell that he could not identify; yet it was familiar, just beyond his grasp. 

“You do well by the name, I think, M.V Boli,” it rasped, its shape wavering and growing dimmer still until he could scarcely feel it resting against him. 

With that, it had gone, and Boli was alone once more. His thoughts were growing sluggish, even as he struggled to comprehend how the thing knew its name; almost as if he was fighting sleep. Realizing suddenly that he was doing the opposite - fighting  _ awakening  _ \- he closed his sockets and let reality reclaim him.

  
  
  
  
  



	62. Chapter 62

Boli awoke to the sound of distant piano and a heavy smell of sulphur - strange things, unfamiliar things. But still he awoke sluggishly, disorientedly. He had to fight to sit up so as to not drift off yet again, and as he did so, memories slowly but surely began to settle in.

Somehow, he had wound up in the bedroom - Gaster had probably carried him there at some point, though _why_ was a mystery, as he had no problems whatsoever sleeping in rather inopportune locations.

He still had so many questions. Groaning lowly and pushing himself to the edge of the bed, he swung his legs over the edge, though the dizziness already threatening him from merely from the movement he’d already forced over his weighted bones warned him not to attempt to stand. Covering both sockets with his hands, he leaned his elbows onto his femurs and drew a deep breath. The world felt out of sync.

“Gaster?” He mumbled to the room, not fully certain that the scientist was there at all. In an instant, though, he heard the desk chair scrape across the tile and footsteps approaching, felt hands on either of his humerus bones, gripping lightly.

“Finally,” the scientist rasped hoarsely. “Wait. Wait there a moment. You need fluids. And-” cutting himself off, Gaster stood and retreated from the room. Boli listened to the sound of his receding footsteps for a moment, not able to gather his thoughts quickly enough to call after him.

Dropping his hands from his sockets, Boli glanced around the room, but his vision was too blurry to see much farther than a metre away. All-in-all, he felt less horrible than he would have expected. In fact, aside from a weighty stiffness clinging to his joints and a fog clinging similarly to his thoughts, nothing seemed amiss. Slowly raising his arms over his skull, he stretched, his entire frame shaking from the effort. A rush of color to his sockets stopped him and he clasped at his forehead, sighing.

“Ugh,” Boli groaned to himself, glancing towards the door as Gaster reappeared, a bowl in one hand and a mug in the other. As the scientist came within range of his reach, Boli immediately reached for the mug, taking a gulp. He had been expecting coffee, but instead received a cold, vaguely salty mouthful of slightly chalky… water? Fighting against the urge to immediately spit it back out into the mug, he forced himself to swallow it down, though not without a gag.

“W-what the fuck is that.”

“Electrolyte mix. Please drink it.”

“Electro…?” Boli began, reigning his vision in to look at Gaster closely. “How… how long was I unconscious?”

Gaster was silent for a few moments, looking around the room distractedly. Avoidantly. As his fuzzy vision began to clear, Boli took him in, picking apart details. Heavy purple circles beneath Gaster’s eyes, clothes that looked as if they had been slept in beneath a clean labcoat, uncontrollably trembling hands…

Ranging his attention farther out, Boli took in the platoon of file boxes still scattered across the floor. The pile had changed shape enough for him to estimate how much had been processed, but he found himself reluctant to make his guess out loud.

“I… Well! _We’ve_ only missed one dose. Not the end of the world, not at all.” When the scientist spoke at last, it was in a broken endeavor of optimism, his hands wringing in front of him.

Boli said nothing, his sockets drifting across the room to the work desk where a tape deck rested, quietly playing the piano that he had awoken to. Next to it, a matchbox and a pile of burnt matches. Squinting, he looked back to Gaster.

“W...W-well. W-what’d I miss?”

He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he found himself taken aback as Gaster’s sockets abruptly went dark and he made a firm gesture towards the mug in Boli’s hand, commanding him to continue drinking. Uneasily, he took another sip. Something wasn’t right.

“The Soul Repair Bay malfunctioned,” the scientist began, sitting next to Boli on the edge of the bed, their arms touching lightly. When the boy stiffened, his words rushed onwards. “Nothing to do with the code you wrote, nor regarding your well-being. It… erm… Had some sort of spontaneous reaction with… This.”

Pulling the memory disk out of his labcoat’s breast pocket, he offered it back to Boli with a hand that looked as though it could barely continue to hold the case. The boy took it, putting it next to him on his opposite side. Mind racing, he stared into the cloudy surface of his beverage, forcing himself to swallow another gulp to obscure his racing thoughts.

“...I had to leave. I came back afterwards to make sure your vitals were healthy, and then brought you here. I could not neglect to observe you, but I could not… be there.” Leaning away and breaking the contact between them, Gaster took a deep breath that seemed to catch somewhere in his chest, quaking before it came out in a broken, bitter laugh. “You could have died, but I fled anyway. I am the most despicable, cowardly, _repugnant_ -”

“Shh. Hey. S-stop that.” Chiding gently, Boli scooched closer to the scientist, pressing close to him once again. “I’m fine, aren’t I?”

The other skeleton went still and silent for a few moments before shifting the bowl in his hand towards the boy. “I also brought gelatin. Is lime flavor okay?”

Before he could catch himself, Boli snorted. For a moment, everything else faded from significance and he craned his neck up as high as he could, nuzzling his mouth against Gaster’s jaw affectionately. “Yeah, I think that’ll do. Thanks, _Doctor_ Gaster.”

The tension fell out of the scientist and he melted against Boli, sockets drifting half-closed. “I was… concerned,” he whispered, voice remaining taut so as to not show the tremble just beneath. “I really could not lose you, Boli. It would break me.”

The boy only hummed soothingly in response, stroking his hand gingerly up Gaster’s femur in a gesture that was both reassuring and undeniably erotic, though stopping his hand at a safe distance from the scientist’s pelvic bone, awaiting his response.

“Stop that, I’m not trying to…” Gaster began in a frustrated rush, suddenly pushing himself up from where he sat on the bed only to kneel between the boy’s legs, gazing imploringly up at him. His teeth chattered together as he tried to find words, but in the end his skull dropped forward, resting face-down in Boli’s lap.

Cheeks burning bright green, Boli placed his hand lightly on the back of Gaster’s skull. “That position doesn’t s-suit you, G’,” he joked, but the other skeleton didn’t seem to have any response aside from to lift his skull and place it instead on Boli’s femur.

Not knowing what to say or do now, Boli drained the last of the liquid in his mug and set it aside on the table, picking up the bowl of jello Gaster had brought and shaving off a small sliver with the spoon, letting the slimy, tart jelly melt back into a liquid in the warmth of his mouth. It was pretty good, so Boli finished off the offering and placed it on the table, as well. By then, Gaster still hadn’t budged.

“S-so, uh… Let’s get back to w-work.” Shaking his leg gently to jostle the other skeleton, Boli smiled weakly. “I made it. The w-worst is over. Now we keep going. Right?”

A huge sigh shook Gaster’s shoulders and he lifted his skull, meeting Boli’s sockets with a flurry of conflicting emotions in his own. “...Yes,” he said at last, very heavily. Seeming to have trouble holding the boy’s gaze, he looked downwards again. “Er… There is one more thing I should probably mention.”

“Yeah?” Boli drawled, pushing himself back from Gaster and laying back on the bed, stretching out his entire body with a groan. “‘N what’s that?”

“...It’s Shade. Get yourself cleaned up and dressed, Boli, I think you will want to see them for yourself.”

 

* * *

 

The mention of Shade seemed to light a fire in Boli and it was only a handful of minutes before he emerged from the bathroom, stumbling to pull a clean pair of pants on as he walked towards the closet for a lab coat; Gaster couldn’t recall ever seeing the boy prepare for the day so quickly. It roused a strange hopefulness in him, but it was soon forgotten in the wake of the distance and exhaustion behind the light in the boy’s sockets.

Briefly, Gaster considered that he may have prioritized incorrectly - worrying about Boli and his experiences with DT should have come first. But he knew better than to backpedal now and attempt to hold him back from visiting Shade. In the end he said nothing at all, following behind Boli as he headed out of the bedroom, still fixing the collar of his labcoat as he went.

“They’re okay, right?” Boli asked only once they were in the elevator, waiting in silence for it to descend farther into the earth.

“Yes.”

“You’re being very vague and that annoys me.”

“Yes.”

The rest of the ride was quiet. When the doors slid open, Boli took off to the prisoner’s ward swiftly, leaving Gaster to follow behind more slowly, rubbing his temples in a slow circular motion. _What I_ should _have prioritized is sending him straight to Chara’s room to get my damned DT._

Just barely catching the door behind Boli, Gaster continued after the boy, stopping a fair distance away from Shade’s room where he stopped to knock firmly. Privately relieved that neither Angel nor Ilea emerged from their room to greet them, Gaster leaned his tailbone on the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, watching on in silence as the door to the ghost’s room swung open.

All in all, they hadn’t changed on the surface. Their light-absorbing shape and their bright eyes, the glow of their mouth; it all remained the same. Boli froze up at the sight of them, not seeming to know how to react, before at last looking towards Gaster, his eyes full of questions.

“Hey,” Shade broke the silence nonchalantly, seeming to greet both skeletons equally. “‘Sup?”

“You know what’s “sup,” Shade,” the scientist sighed. “Do not play coy. Show him.”

At this the phantom turned their attention back to Boli, cracking a huge grin that took up half their lower portion. “Huh, he didn’t ruin the surprise. That’s out of character,” Shade chuckled.

“He has been lately,” Boli replied in a low voice, letting his crooked smirk turn slightly more wry, leaning towards Shade. Waiting.

Tossing their head back slightly and laughing, almost abashedly, Shade lowered themselves to the floor then raised up again, leaving the soul chamber within them resting on the stone. Boli blinked a few times, trying to comprehend the soul inside. It shed light across the floor yet devoured any that hit it; as pitch black as Shade themselves, glowing bright as a Boss soul with magic.

“You… it… the DT… it…” Boli stuttered, slowly, taking a careful step forward to look at the display on the chamber. The output was no different than Ilea’s - impossible for a monster soul. “When? How?”

Turning suddenly to embarrassment, Shade sank back over the chamber and absorbed it back into themselves, floating a few feet away from the boy. “It… it wasn’t really what I expected. It just sorta… happened. Two days ago, after you two left for the night.” they mumbled, glancing past Boli to look at Gaster instead. The scientist nodded slightly, knowingly. “It… doesn’t make sense. Scientifically. But…”

Falling into silence, Shade floated back to rest their weight against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. “I dunno. I felt something I hadn’t really ever felt before. It burned, but in a good way. And then…” They stopped, gesturing at themselves with a dark limb.

Lowering his voice significantly now, Boli bent towards Shade slightly. “And you never saw a human child? One with brown hair and a locket?”

“I never saw _nothin’_.”

Leaning back, looking up at the ceiling and turning over the information in his mind, Boli heaved a sigh. “None of this makes any sense,” he muttered aloud.

“You’re telling me,” Shade agreed, their eyes turning melancholy and downcast for a moment. “I… I never would’ve thought for a second that I’d… I’d be more determined than _Angel._ I didn’t think I could do anything she couldn’t. ‘Cept go through walls.”

Smirking now, Boli glanced to Shade’s humorous expression. If Gaster weren’t standing a few paces away, he would have been tempted to move a bit closer, to hold the ghost’s stare for longer. Instead, he felt rooted to the ground, mindlessly following the restricted behaviour that he knew would be safe. It left an empty feeling in his chest cavity.

An uncomfortable silence fell across the hall for a few minutes before Gaster pushed off from the wall, clearing his throat gently. “Well, Boli? What are you thinking? This is _your_ project now, after all.”

Stiffening at the question, Boli felt his hands rise to his sternum of their own accord and wrap around, gripping tightly. Somehow, the nonchalant tone of the question - and the timing, in Shade’s full sight, with no warning - sent him into a panic more than having it yelled at him or any other delivery he could imagine would. He could feel Shade’s eyes on him, intrigued, but he couldn’t force his mouth to produce words.

“ _His_ project?” Shade echoed in Gaster’s direction, freeing Boli from the question with the quickest wink of one eye.

“Yes. I have given him responsibility of the Determination experiments. Which, I suppose, only leaves Angel, now.”

“Hmmmm.” The ghost turned a sharp stare on Gaster, floating past Boli to hover before the towering monster, inspecting him. “And you, you mean.”

The scientist was only taken aback for a rather brief period before shaking his skull. _Of course they knew. They likely knew the entire time._ “Well, only until my dose has been tapered off. The head of the project, it seems, has deemed me an unfit candidate. Who am I to disagree?”

Stumped by the response, Shade looked over their shoulder at Boli briefly. “Uh… Okay. Well, let me start us off. I’m not a Boss monster, so that’s not a requirement of the mutation.”

Seeming to come out of his stupor slightly at the words, Boli slowly nodded. “Y...yeah. And you didn’t get hurt like Ilea, so pain and dying aren’t even _in_ the equation.”

“Oops,” remarked Gaster, adding nothing else to the conversation. The other two monsters gave him an almost identical harsh glower before looking back to each other, seeming to mutually decide to ignore him. _No wonder they like each other,_ the scientist found himself thinking, allowing himself to be shut out of the conversation and leaning back against the wall.

“That burning feeling. Ilea mentioned that, too,” Boli sighed after a few moments of silence. Clenching his jaw, he inspected Shade thoughtfully. “And you really didn’t see a kid?”

“I told you, I didn’t see anything. I was just in my room, thinking about… stuff.”

Stifling a sigh of frustration, Boli spoke to Gaster without turning to look at him. “G’, give us a s-sec’, alright?”

Unable to keep surprise at being issued an actual _order_ off his face, Gaster bit down on his tongue, silencing an instinctive, condescending response of “ _pardon me?_ ” Indignation flared up just as quickly and he stomped it down, scowling pensively at himself. When he realized the other two monsters were looking to him expectantly for a response, he smirked deviously, shrugging his shoulders.

“Try not to smooch too much. After all, neither of you even have lips,” he quipped, taking the moment that they were both caught too off-guard to respond to head off down the hall, waving an arm at his side in farewell.

“There’s something seriously wrong with him,” Shade announced once he had gone, turning to face Boli. “Is he like, on something? Is he drunk?”

“I don’t think so,” the boy responded, still staring in the direction the scientist had vanished in. “Actually, I… I… W-w-well… W-with how he’s… _changed,_ I thought that he, his s-soul...  I thought he was going to be next. But none of this makes any s-sense.”

The ghost said nothing for a moment, then moved to nudge the door to their room open, jerking their head towards the room. “Maybe not yet, but we’ll figure out this mess. C’mon. Let’s chat.”


	63. The Science of Determination

With Gaster’s presence gone and the fear of his reactions following suit, Boli soon found himself relaxing more in Shade’s company, as he often did. Even if what they had to discuss was far from lighthearted, Shade brought him an ease he didn’t feel he needed to explain to himself. Shade didn’t hold shields up, or hide traps beneath their words.  _ Or maybe they do, and I’m just too naive to notice… or my judgement is that bad, or- _

The sound of mattress springs creaking distracted Boli from his unwanted thoughts and he looked over to where Shade had laid on their bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, mouth slightly open. It was easy to mistake the expression for a blank stare, but Boli knew that they must be deep in thought, their mind focused on the topic at hand while he was busy worrying about stupid, selfish things.

“Alright, so,” Shade began, and Boli was glad for the distraction of their words. “From the top one more time. We know D.T effects Boss monsters and regular monsters equally, and the reaction isn’t directly related to pain or life-threatening situations, like Gaster thought. What does that leave in common between what happened to Ilea and what happened to me? For that matter, how is it anything like the mice in Gaster’s initial tests?” Shade droned with little inflection to their words, simply speaking aloud.

“It’s probably so simple we’re overthinking it, and we’re gonna feel like idiots when we figure it out,” they continued when Boli said nothing, craning to look over at where the skeleton still stood in the doorway. Sensing their eyes on him, he forced himself out of his frozen state, crossing the room to sit at the foot of the bed.

Fidgeting for a moment, he soon opted to lay across the bed widthwise, his feet still touching the floor. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it allowed him to tuck his hands beneath himself to contain his restlessness and focus more on his thoughts. “Honestly, I thought it w-was s-something to do with Chara themselves,” he mused quietly, looking at the ceiling as well, “but you  _ didn’t  _ s-see them at all. I’m gonna have to scrap the only theory I had.”

Shade said nothing for long enough that Boli began to wonder if they had dozed off and was beginning to feel like he might do so himself before they wriggled around in their spot on the bed to face Boli, their eyes large and somber. He had seen the ghost put on their serious mode enough times before, but not quite like this. Drowsiness immediately banished before Shade even opened their mouth, Boli waited uneasily for their next words.

“I have a couple things on my mind that I wanna say, but I need you to let me talk, alright?” They spoke with a resoluteness that wasn’t wholly unfamiliar, but still it sent a slight chill down Boli’s spine. Startled, he gave his skull a quick nod. 

“Of course, w-why w-wouldn’t I-?”

“It’s about Gaster.”

Quieting, the skeleton quickly averted his eyes, looking back at the ceiling instead. All too quickly, he remembered that Shade knew now just how far his relationship with the Royal Scientist had gone. There were countless criticisms they could throw against him about how unsafe - how  _ twisted  _ \- it all was, and still there were things that the ghost didn’t even know. 

If Shade knew some part of him had been trying to “seduce” Gaster - perhaps subconsciously then, but far too clear to him now - essentially since day one, they would probably literally be sick, and Boli couldn’t even blame them. Truthfully, he found his own behaviour both puzzling and revolting yet was simultaneously aware that he wouldn’t stop. Saying none of this, Boli shrugged his shoulders, trying to look indifferent.

“...I was pretty much still a kid when I came to him for experiments,” Shade began, slowly and heavily. “He was looking for incorporeal monsters in the Underground to collect data on the unique qualities of our souls. I won’t say I was…  _ stupid,  _ back then, but I just didn’t have the perspective to understand what was happening.” 

“He picked  _ me,  _ Boli, out of all the applicants. Not an adult - I know some of my older relatives applied - but  _ me. _ And when I met him in person, he was immediately kinder to me than anyone ever bothered to be; he showered me in praise, calling me... brave and clever, always with the “clever.” And on top of what he was paying my guardians for the experiment, he… bought me things that I casually mentioned I wanted, gave me advice... 

“It was great. I was so…  _ infatuated _ . I had never felt like that about anyone.”

Boli only waited, his soul feeling heavy and flimsy at the same time, like it was slowly descending into quicksand. Where was this going?

“...He really made me think I was special, you know. Someone as important as him, putting  _ me _ up on a pedestal? It was unfamiliar. And scary, and… nice. But it was all for his own gain, because whether or not he  _ knew  _ it or not, he was grooming me from the second he met me. And he did the same to you. Things are always perfect until he gets bored. I know that from personal experience.”

He’d never heard the word “grooming” in the context they were using now before, but found that he already knew what it meant. Presented with more questions than answers, Boli rolled onto his side to look at Shade, trying to read their expression while they looked past him vacantly. A pit opened up somewhere in Boli’s chest and he dug his fingertips into the mattress, wondering if he was expected to say something in response to all this. Even if he was supposed to, he doubted that he could - but Shade never gave him so much as an expectant look, so instead he only waited, staring at the wall behind Shade.

“Boli,” Shade hissed after what had to be several minutes. Surprised by the almost fierce tone of their voice, he struggled to return the intense stare they’d fixed on him. “He is  _ not  _ everything, okay?”

Unexpectedly, the words felt like a fist striking him in the ribcage. Immediately, Boli found himself fighting back tears, trying to hide the hitch in his breathing, though he knew it was useless to try to hide his reaction from Shade of all monsters.

“I’m trying to tell you, as someone who’s been where you are now, that his approval isn’t the bar that’s set for you. With or without him, you’re…” stopping for a moment when Boli pressed his fingers into the corners of his sockets, squeezing them shut, they took a deep breath before going on. “You’re amazing, alright? I think you’re amazing. Not everyone will - that’s kinda unavoidable - but  _ I  _ think you’re the best. And Ilea - she thinks  _ so  _ highly of you, dude. And we won’t be the only ones. Gaster is  _ not  _ the guy who gets the last word in on your worth, ‘kay? It’s you,  _ you  _ get to decide.”

“It might take  _ years  _ \- it took me three fuckin’ years not to freeze just from hearing his name - but someday you’ll wake up and know that he genuinely  _ ain’t shit _ ; that you’re the only person who decides your own worth. And you owe yourself that. You deserve that.”

Shaking his skull, Boli swallowed hard. He knew he wouldn’t be able to manage more than a couple words before having to go back to holding his sobs captive in his chest once again - knowing that made it harder to justify arguing with Shade. He didn’t know what he would say anyways, so he simply kept shaking his skull from side to side, firmer now.

“Well. I’m no politician. I can’t talk you into believing nothin’ you don’t want to believe. But when I was thinking last night and all that dawned on me, I figured the least I could do was pass it onto you. But if you weren’t ready to hear it, wasn’t much point, huh? But I think you  _ were  _ ready, and it hurts so  _ damn _ much  _ because  _ you hear me. ‘Cuz you know I’m right.”

Even though he wholeheartedly didn’t want to, Shade’s words were so steady and certain that Boli clung to them like an anchor; it was the one stable thing in the chaos of his mind at that moment, all he could use to try to brace against the storm. By now he knew somewhat how to predict how bad it would get, and how much it was worth it to actually try to fight it.

This time, he let the tightness in his chest cavity go, one rickety sob letting loose a barrage of tears that he simply rode through. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to calm down and catch his breath, but he knew that all the while a shadowy hand from Shade rested on his arm, occasionally caressing up and down gently. 

“I wanted to get that out of the way, but now that I’ve said all that…” Shade sounded far more unsure of themselves now, studying Boli was he wiped the last of his tears away using his labcoat’s sleeve. “...I think I have a pretty good idea of the secret behind D.T; or at least, parts of it.  _ Why  _ it might happen, and why it  _ hasn’t  _ for Angel… or Gaster.”

Almost immediately putting aside the watery feeling in his chest that warned him he could break down again at a minor provocation, Boli looked to Shade wide-eyed.

“Their LV.” Sitting up suddenly with their grim words, as if they didn’t want to be quite so close to Boli during this topic, they looked across the room instead. “Ilea and I both had - ugh - for lack of a better word, “epiphanies.” Or whatever. She told me some things after you kicked me out for your guys’ talk; not much, just that she had a dream or hallucination or whatever that made her realize she wasn’t ready to die. And that’s pretty much how I’d describe what happened to me, too. As  _ stupid _ as it sounds.”

“I was ready to give up, but I knew that I still have… things left to do. Reasons to stay.” Pausing, Shade squinted straight ahead, thoughtful. “And Gaster seems like he made a pretty important decision too, but nothing has changed with his soul. Maybe his convictions have to be  _ that  _ much stronger to “commandeer” the D.T the way Ilea and I did, or maybe he literally can’t.”

Looking towards Boli, seemingly only to check if he was still listening to their rambling, they shrugged. As if sensing the countless questions floating around in his skull, they swivelled to face him fully after another few moments of silence. 

“...Really. I think it’s just  _ that  _ abstract, Boli. You have to find that  _ thing,  _ whatever it is, that you’ll move mountains for. Whatever it is that’ll give you the strength to get out of bed day after day, to make you brave enough to turn your back to death. It’s just a matter of what it takes to make you realize what that thing is.”

Numb, only half in touch with reality and their words, Boli managed to nod slowly. “Abstract…” he echoed quietly, staring straight ahead. In a way, it made sense. Magic itself  _ was  _ abstract. How could there be a simple, stone-solid explanation to anything based on magic in the first place? But his thoughts refused to stay on the topic that was important, and instead he got stuck on selfish inquiries; even if it was better not to know and thoughtless to ask.

“S-s-so… W-what is it?” Boli ventured, barely daring to look over to Shade. When they only tipped the upper part of their body in response, the closest they could get to a head tilt, he shrugged, admittedly frustrated with his own inability to make his words fall in line. “The… thing, for you. The thing that you’ll… get out of bed for.” Involuntarily, he held his breath. He thought he might know the answer already, but he would not let himself believe it for even a second. But could it be…?

The ghost puffed their chest out confidently at the question, their mouth opening wide in a grin. “ _ Myself _ , dude!” they proclaimed to the room.

Boli found himself both stunned and disappointed for a split second, but almost instantly he decided that that was far better than anything he might have guessed. Returning Shade’s wan smile, he leaned in a little. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard maybe ever.” Something about his own voice was not quite what he intended; quieter, more convicted. It was supposed to be a joke; but he wasn’t joking, really. Shade leaned forward as well and Boli let his forehead rest against theirs, content with the closeness. They smelt burnt and oily, like the CORE. It was nice.

Truthfully, Boli didn’t care how long they stayed leaned together like this, but it seemed Shade did; they leaned away after a minute had ticked by, searching the skeleton across from them curiously. “So… Do you think I might be right? About the LV? I really can’t think of anything else it  _ could  _ be.”

“I definitely w-wouldn’t rule it out, honestly,” Boli confessed, wringing his hands together and looking away. “But that w-would  _ really  _ complicate things - I mean, does that mean Angel will  _ never _ undergo the s-same changes? Or does it just mean it w-will take longer? Gaster’s been using D.T for longer than all of us, and he s-seems surer about this than… anything! If nothing’s happened after that, w-what could it take? W-what might Angel feel that s-strongly about?” Letting his skull droop, Boli heaved a sigh. “It’s hopeless. I’m not getting anyw-where w-with this.”

Blinking in surprise, Shade reached across the distance between them to give him a rough, though not unkind, nudge. “Give yourself a little more credit, man. You’re definitely the smartest one year-old anyone’s ever met! ” they teased, firing him a playful grin. “...Besides, we have more now than we started out with, yeah?”

Laughing weakly, Boli scooched closer to Shade to lean against them lightly. He heard them sigh quietly in response and almost pulled away again, but before he could, a warm, pliable shadow arm wrapped around his shoulder, inviting him closer. Though his soul started doing somersaults in his chest cavity, he welcomed the feeling, half-closing his sockets and letting his cheek rest against Shade’s body.

“...I hate to be the ghost who says this, but have you considered nothing has happened because… he’s faking it?” Shade spoke up after a rather long and content silence that immediately fell apart at the words. They lit a fire in Boli’s windpipe and and he pulled away, steadily holding their stare.

“Do you think  _ I _ haven’t considered that?” He spat. His anger made it hard to admit that the words had, in some way, wounded him, but he let Shade see the range of emotions for themselves. “I’m here w-with you because I’m not  _ afraid  _ of w-what he’d do to me if he s-saw us so close anymore! He w-won’t be so possessive anymore, because he’s going to change, and, and-”

Realizing suddenly how immature and idiotic he sounded, Boli simply decided to stop, clenching his jaw down on whatever other words might spill out. Shaking his skull, he pushed himself off the bed to instead stand in the middle of the room a few feet away from Shade, back turned to them. 

“...What, like he wouldn’t be right to be angry?” Shade inquired with a certain edge to their voice after a few moments. When Boli only craned his neck to give the ghost a slightly confused glance, they sighed irritably. “C’mon, Boli, what do you think you are to him? You’re  _ partners. _ If I were him, I’d be pissed to see you getting all cozy with me, too. It’s not a matter of possessiveness; if he wants you to be loyal to him and you’re not, there’ll be a fight. Don’t you expect the same from him?”

Confused despite the fact he  _ knew _ the concept was fairly simplistic, Boli turned around to face Shade again. “It’s not like that,” he muttered, even if it wasn’t true. He didn’t exactly know the truth, and despite the fact he tried to brush past that reality, there was something in the way Shade studied him that told him he’d failed.

“Then what  _ is _ it like, Boli?” They shifted to the edge of the bed and stared levelly at him with the question, and the boy soon began to realize that he wasn’t going to escape this topic unless he opted to literally run away from it. “Haven’t you two ever talked about your  _ relationship? _ ”

Uncomfortable under their expectant stare, Boli wrung his hands and looked around the room. “He knows I love him,” he began, pathetically, then bit his tongue. Not knowing how to proceed in a way that might help Shade to understand, he took a deep breath and began to wonder how he could stall for time. “And… he’s talked about w-why he wants to be w-with me. S-Sure, they’re not the best reasons, but… but w-we  _ have  _ talked about w-whatever it is w-we have. I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, but-”

“You need to talk to him,” Shade interrupted flatly, floating up into the air, closer to Boli and level with him now. “You have to talk to him about what you are to him, because I need to know what you’re trying to be to  _ me,  _ okay? I’m not here to fill in gaps because you’re in love with someone who’s made of stone.”

Even the most savage of deliveries couldn’t have bit into Boli deeper than the calmness that Shade instead chose to use. Reflexively, his body tried to start crying again, but he kept a firm hold on the urge this time, blinking rapidly to will away his tears. Before he could begin to gather his thoughts enough to respond to Shade, they had half-turned away from him, their glowing mouth shaped into a downward curve, eyes dim. After a brief moment of sulking, they floated back to the bed and set themselves down, slightly hunched. 

“I’m sorry, Boli. I didn’t wanna do this to you, believe me, but I can’t keep saying nothin’ forever,” Shade’s voice was scarcely audible at this point, gaze downcast. “Couple days ago, things were different. But I don’t want to give Gaster a reason to hurt either of us, ya know? No one would win in a situation like that, especially not  _ now, _ if he’s trying to… change, or whatever.”

Struggling to keep up with everything Shade was saying at this point, found himself at a loss for words. All things considered, he’d never given much merit to the possibility that Shade might feel anything for him but a combination of camaraderie, pity and disgust - having the reality of their feelings simply dropped unceremoniously in front of him by Gaster before his injection and again in this moment left him with no idea how to actually react. 

What he did know, though, was that he didn’t want to simply brush them off - especially not considering that he felt the same, and they seemed to already know.  _ I’m not exactly subtle,  _ he berated himself, sighing heavily. 

“So you see why this has to stop, yeah?” They pressed after a few moments in which Boli simply stood in the centre of the room, feeling inexplicably exposed and paralyzed.

““This?” Shade, I… I mean, s-sure, I  _ like  _ you, and I enjoy coming to s-see you, but it’s nothing more than that. I-”

“...Oh.” Shade interrupted him with the quiet, dejected sound, and Boli let himself trail off, though only for a moment before panic spurned him to try to salvage the situation.

“I mean-! I don’t w-want to see you hurt because of me, either, that’s the last thing I w-want, not to mention I never, never w-would’ve ever thought you’d- I’m just a-!” Stopping upon realizing that he had seemingly lost the ability to form a coherent thought, Boli hung his skull and took a deep breath. Crossing the room slowly, he sat next to Shade, though he looked towards the door rather than in their direction.

“I w-wish things w-were different.  _ S-so  _ different. I can’t s-say what you are to me, or whatever “this”  _ is,  _ but I w-wish it wasn’t… like this.” Taking a deep breath, Boli gave his skull the smallest of nods. Finally, a sentence that conveyed some sort of central idea. “But you’re completely right. I couldn’t live w-with myself if Gaster did something to you because of me. And I… I don’t w-want to hurt  _ him,  _ either. I’m…  _ s-stupid.  _ I didn’t even think about his feelings. S-so, it doesn’t really matter how I really feel, or w-what I want to be to you, does it? Going on like this is just going to hurt s-someone, one way or another.”

A little out of breath by now, and privately rather impressed with himself for managing to get his point across at least semi-sufficiently at last, Boli let himself breathe a sigh that bordered on relief. 

Sitting up straight now, Shade rocked themselves back and forth once in a nod, though their voice was a little bit tighter when they spoke. “...I can’t say I understand why you wanna be committed to him, but given everything that happened recently, I’m gonna do my best to respect your decision. But I wish…” 

They trailed off, giving Boli a long, thoughtful stare. More than thoughtful, he realized with an uncomfortable jolt up his spine; wanting, as well. Longing. Tensing against a shudder that shook his frame, Boli returned their stare with a steadiness he couldn’t have predicted he’d have at his disposal.

“...wish things could be different, too,” Shade mumbled after a long moment. “Maybe someday.” 

Boli didn’t consciously realize that he was leaning towards Shade, as if they had some sort of gravity around them pulling him in, until a second after they had begun to lean in as well. Before it quite occurred to Boli what he had initiated, Shade had embraced him with two shadowy limbs draped over either of his shoulders and linked behind his skull, pulling his mouth into range of theirs. Immediately, Boli’s mind froze solid, but his body flipped onto autopilot just as quickly. 

For one immortal second, Boli allowed himself to be pure instinct, returning the pressure of Shade’s mouth against his, feeling the pleasant tingle of magic from within them; allowed himself to feel nothing but the soft warmth of their sides as he gripped onto them and pulled them closer. 

A sudden spark of magic from somewhere within Shade, like a static shock, sent the two monsters reeling apart suddenly, leaving Boli breathing heavily, agape, at the ghost. After a moment, they let loose one of their odd, musical peals of laughter and Boli laughed along, his mind blurry and sluggish in the best way possible. 

“Sorry, got a little overexcited there,” Shade giggled abashedly, and Boli swallowed hard, nodding. Part of him had been ready to move in yet again, but their words were enough to warn him that if he did, it might not end quite so innocently. So he held himself back, looking down at his hands awkwardly.

“...W-wanted to do that at least once,” Boli dared to say, his voice scarcely audible.

“...Yeah, same,” Shade agreed with a nonchalant shrug, though their eyes were wider than ever and shimmering, their mouth trying and mostly failing to hide an enamored smile. The expression soon faded, though, and they reached towards Boli with a dark limb, grazing it down his chest in a quick motion. “Man. I’m fucked, you know that? Completely fucked. I knew it back when we met, but  _ damn  _ am I fucked.”

“That makes two of us,” Boli laughed out the response a little breathlessly, partly wishing he could take back the last five minutes or so. With a single foolish action, he’d made everything harder for both of them, and he knew it - but Shade didn’t seem to resent him for it, and his soul fluttered contently in his chest cavity, full of warmth he was unaccustomed to. His regret soon faded away.

“W-well… Uh… w-what do w-we do now?” He wondered aloud, forcing himself to stop looking at Shade, as his attention continually gravitated towards their mouth now.

“ _ Well, uh _ ,” Shade began, teasing him gently, then cleared their throat, “now you talk to Gaster about the LV possibility. Before or after you talk about the terms of your guys’ relationship is fine.” A lump formed in Boli’s throat at the presentation of the expectation, and he said nothing. “Though I gotta say, I’m not sure I wanna see you again before I have a sure answer on whether or not I gotta fight to keep my hands off you with every fibre of my being.” 

Boli distinctly felt the temperature of his face soar when the words registered, and he pretended to be very interested in his hands clasped in his lap. Even in fantasies that crept up on him, he never would have imagined someone aside from Gaster would talk to him this way. He wasn’t quite sure if it was thrilling or just humiliating.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel pressured,” Shade blurted quickly, their eyes wide like two full moons. “I totally overstepped, I was thinkin’ you’re kinda into people being pushy with you, with Gaster and all-”

“You w-what?” Boli interrupted, sitting up straighter in shock. “You’re telling me you’ve thought about this that much? That’s…” not knowing how to finish the sentence, he covered his flushed cheeks with both palms. He still wasn’t sure if whatever strange bundle of emotions he was feeling was good or not.

“Yeah, I’ve been pretty nasty about all this,” Shade hissed through the sharp, dark spurs representing their teeth, grimacing at themselves. Taking a deep breath that their entire form expanded and then shrunk back down with, they avoided the skeleton’s stare. “Honestly, it’s just… I’ve never felt like this about  _ anyone  _ before. I’ve had  _ crushes,  _ sure, but this is something totally different. But that’s a shitty excuse, and I’m being super selfish. I didn’t mean to cross any lines.”

Shaking his skull slightly, half-numb, Boli looked down at his hands once again. “I w-wouldn’t even know how to talk to him about s-something like this,” he confessed, tensing a little in anticipation of their response. 

“He already knows we’re… into each other,” Shade pointed out carefully, hesitating before pushing the soul chamber within them out onto the bed. “And this thing puts a pretty big limitation on what we could even do, so-”

“Shade, oh my  _ god, _ ” Boli burst out without thinking, immediately covering his mouth. Looking at their taken aback expression briefly, he closed his sockets for a moment. “S-sorry, but… god, last time I s-s-saw you, I had no idea you even actually w-wanted to be my friend, and now you’re s-saying you w-want to…? I need a s-sec’, alright?”

Falling silent as requested of them, Shade quickly shot out a tendril of shadow to yank their soul chamber back into their form. Despite the silence he was given to think in, Boli quickly began to feel like he was drowning in the thoughts that he was trying to sort. Soon, he reverted back to regret; things were much better before they had been so complicated, even if it meant hiding his feelings - poorly - from Shade and keeping them at a distance as much as he had been able to. 

Skull hanging low with the thought, he heaved a sigh and wiped at his burning sockets with both hands, brushing away the tears that welled up there. Through blurry vision, he barely saw as Shade reached over a hand and entwined their fingers with his, but instinctively gripped onto their touch. It was strange yet simple at the same time - and terrifying. He knew he liked - more than  _ liked  _ \- much of what he was feeling, but what he certainly did not like was the aching need in his chest. He did not want to  _ need _ another monster. One was enough.

“I don’t know how to do this.” The boy wasn’t quite sure what the sentence meant even as he said it, and he pulled his hand away from Shade’s, standing from the bed and backing away a pace or two. “I mean, not… not… properly. I don’t know how to w-w-w....” Stopping, biting his tongue between his teeth for a second, he looked away from Shade’s watching eyes. “I feel too much. This is too much,” he mumbled at last, surprised by the straightforwardness of what he finally managed to say.

He could hear Shade make a gulping sound even given the distance between them; unable to look at them altogether now, he turned around to face the door instead. “I have to think about this and decide how I really feel before I even cons-sider talking to Gaster about it. I’m s-sorry, Shade. I’m…” shaking his skull, he stepped to the door and put his hand on the knob, though it was harder to convince himself to actually leave. 

“You don’t need to be sorry, Boli,” Shade’s voice was calm and even when they found words at last, even though they had to admit to themselves all this was beginning to feel like a punch to a stomach they didn’t actually have. “I came on too strong, and that was my bad. Take all the time you need. In the meantime, I’ll keep thinking about this Determination business. If you ever need someone to bounce ideas off, I can do that for you.”

Something about their composure and understanding felt worse at that particular moment, but Boli nodded his skull anyways, forcing himself to open the door, despite his soul screaming at him to turn back around and fall into an embrace with the ghost instead, to stay there until Gaster came and ripped him away. The image burned into his mind for a moment and finally spurned him to take off down the hall, bound for the elevator with tripping haste.


	64. *So, three skeletons walk into the Void... heh.

Regardless of how much Boli needed the time during the elevator ride to the main lab to recoup and gather his thoughts, it seemed that the world - and Gaster - had less merciful plans for him. He was already halfway across the main chamber when he detected a familiar shape and movement out of the corners of his vision and turned, locking eyes with the Royal Scientist from across the room.

He turned to face Boli from where he stood in front of the surveillance monitors, leaning his tailbone on the control panel, his eyes full of dangerous things that Boli didn’t want to think of too deeply. Of course he’d been watching. _How could I have been so stupid?_

“And here I thought I was a _tad_ farther off-base with my quips,” Gaster spoke quietly, a wicked, dark smile coming across his face. “I wonder, Boli; after I specifically told you two not to-” he paused, his still figure erupting with a fierce gesture of mashing his hands together before they dropped back to his sides, “-what exactly clicked in your head to tell you to do the exact opposite?”

Feeling like his soul was trying to crawl up through his windpipe and choke him, Boli shuffled back, closer to the elevator door. Every instinct urged him to slither back into the elevator and slam the button and hope the door closed before Gaster could get to it, or to race off down the closest corridor - anything to carry him farther away from the potent menace in Gaster’s malevolent grin. He’d seen this enough times before, he’d been here before. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, move.

“It w-w-w…”  Boli tried, lifting a hand to his mouth and biting down on the knuckle of his index finger as if it might somehow help him control his syllables. The pain only made him feel even more jittery, but at least it gave him something to focus on aside from his racing mind and the burning tears in his sockets.

_I…. can’t believe I thought I’d get away with that, that I’d be able to tell him at my own pace,_ the boy berated himself, shutting his sockets tightly. He tried to gather up an ounce of courage - _anything_ \- but it all seemed to flow away from him and, suddenly, he was crying into his hands, pressing his back to the elevator door.

“Please don’t hurt Shade,” he managed in a brief lull between the panicking breaths and sobs that shook his chest. He was too afraid to move his hands, to see if Gaster had come any closer, yet not knowing sent fear piercing through him. Daring to peek in the time it took him to wipe tears out of the crack in the corner of his socket, he tried to take a few steadying breaths.

“I’m not going to “hurt” anyone,” Gaster shot back swiftly, harshly, not moving from where he leaned against the control panel. “You’ve done enough of that for the three of us.”

The words were like a splinter between each rib and Boli wrapped his hands around his sternum, realizing: he’d never felt guilt before. Not properly - not in a time when he knew that he ought to. It burned and ached, yet at the same time, brought a strange catharsis that mystified him. What was happening now, in this moment, he realized, had a certain _normalcy_ to it. These emotions, this exchange, could happen between any two people; not only a skeleton who had been grown in a cloning chamber and his creator harbouring a century of LV.

Swallowing hard, Boli dared to take a step away from the elevator, towards Gaster, dipping his head low. “I’m s-so sorry, Gaster. For w-whatever it’s w-worth, you… have my w-word that it w-won’t ever happen again. I promise it w-won’t happen again.” All the dangers of testing this thin ice screamed in his mind, but he forced himself to stand strong, lifting his chin to look the other skeleton in the eye.  

For a moment, Boli realized that the Royal Scientist merely looked stunned. In the few seconds that followed, Gaster rapidly switched between confusion, then arrogance, before suddenly seeming to settle into bitterness, his jaw clamping shut with an audible click of teeth.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I put little merit into that promise,” he rasped, turning away from Boli once again to stare at the monitors behind him, attention settling on Shade’s room where they now lay on their side on their bed, soul chamber laid in front of them where they could see it. Crying.

Scoffing, he found himself slamming both hands down on the metal surface of the control panel, the resounding collision echoing through the room. He could feel anger being converted to magic somewhere in the depths of his soul, buzzing around his fingers and pooling in his palms. Clenching his hands into fists, he swung to face Boli. One little slip, one swift strike, and his “cherished” creation could be a pile of dust.

Who would know? Who would care? No-one that mattered.

“Gaster,” Boli warned, raising both hands towards the other skeleton. From where he stood a few feet away from the boy, Gaster could hear a faint spark of magic as the boy’s good eye flickered with neon green light. There was a layer of fog wrapping around Gaster’s mind, insulating him from what Boli had to say next. He could see the boy’s mouth moving, but his words were lost to the buzzing in his skull.

_No!_ Gaster snarled to himself, finding himself involuntarily clutching at his skull as if he could physically push all the thoughts from his mind. _That’s not me. That’s the LV. I know that. I do not want to hurt Boli; I do not want to kill Boli._ _I will not._

Trembling now, Gaster let his hands drop to his sides, shaking them several times as if trying to shake off water; instead, sparks of indigo magic scattered off them, dissipating quickly. Finally, once he felt in control enough to safely do so, he took a step towards Boli. Seeing the concern on the boy’s face multiply rather than fade away, though, he stopped, uncertainly clamping his hands together in front of his chest.

“Gaster, you’re…” Boli began, but before the boy could finish his sentence, the Royal Scientist felt the now-known sensation of D.T running from his nostrils, leaving a warm, sticky trail in its wake.

Smearing his hands across his face to look at the red smudges for himself, an airless, anxious laugh shook his chest. The liquid was darker and more viscous this time, managing to somehow look far worse though it flowed slowly, thickly.

“Well, that’s not good at all,” Gaster began, bunching up as much of the sleeve of his labcoat as he could in his hand and pressing it to his nostrils. “But we’ve already seen this, haven’t we?” The deflection was weak and futile, and he knew it.

“W-we’ve s-seen this w-when you took a double dose,” the boy managed tremulously, stepping towards Gaster with both hands outreached - it was only then that Gaster realized he was swaying on his feet and he was fighting himself to stay upright. “There’s no explanation for _this_ ! W-we need to get you to the s-soul repair bay _now_ to find out w-what’s happen-”

The rest of the boy’s words were lost behind the sound of rushing water inside Gaster’s skull and blackness overtaking his vision as he doubled over; it occurred to him that he was choking on something, but didn’t get a chance to gasp for breath before the world was gone; he didn’t feel his body hit the stone floor.

* * *

 

The first night in the Soul Repair Bay brought Boli the realization that, outside of Gaster’s connections, he had absolutely no one to turn to in cases like these. First, he considered contacting an actual doctor for assistance in figuring out what exactly was causing Gaster’s unconsciousness. But with that came the complexities of having to explain why he’d collapsed in the first place - which he knew very well was a serious breach of confidentiality.

Next, he considered contacting Asgore in hopes that he would be able to find someone to help instead, but the same boundaries came up yet again - not to mention he was less than keen to see the king after their last meeting. Naturally, his mind went again and again to Shade - who better to talk out something like this with? But he found himself outside the elevator three times and never quite had the will to open the door.

Instead, oddly paralyzed by what he was faced with, Boli simply continued his routine as if nothing had happened. He retrieved the three D.T syringes, administering them to Angel and Gaster; he brought the meals for the subjects, avoiding Shade by ducking out of their ward before they could show up; he perused the seemingly infinite pile of files that Gaster swore had some information relevant to their current plight. When he tried to think about the true problem at hand, he could feel his mind start to shut down, saying things like “what am I supposed to do without him to tell me,” and other thoroughly unproductive things that he, in spite of himself, managed to find time to be angry at. Gaster surely wouldn’t want him doing _nothing._

At one point, the thought of, “what if I’m standing by and watching him slowly die?” bubbled up from the darkest parts of his mind and he distracted himself by vigorously scrubbing the kitchen corner to corner. There was still a blue shard from a long-shattered mug behind one of the cabinets. He’d put it in his pocket with the memory disk.

It was hard to find a sense of urgency - the scientist’s state wasn’t all that alarming. He was simply unconscious, refusing to wake up. _The medical term is a coma,_ Boli mocked himself, _and that is actually pretty alarming._ But the “D.T bleed” had stopped not long after Boli finished hooking him up to the machines - after the difficult task of trying to control his Blaster concisely enough to carry Gaster there in the first place - and his vitals showed no signs of decline. In a way, it felt like a lull in everything; something that Boli had wanted rather badly. Not like this, though.

But would it be so wrong to take a few days to fortify himself against the inevitable future? As the evening drew to a close on the second day of Gaster’s unconscious state, Boli made his way to the Soul Repair Bay and his makeshift bed on a spare examination table, checking and recording the scientist’s vitals as he’d done roughly a dozen times already.

“Alright, injection time,” Boli spoke to the unresponsive room, putting aside his log books and instead picking up the syringe with the scientist’s slowly shrinking D.T dose. “At least this is the most cooperative you’ll ever be,” he joked for his own sake, crossing the room to where Gaster lay, sockets shut, beneath the apparatus that was ensuring he stayed stable and sustained.

Hovering his hand above Gaster’s sternum, he managed to channel enough magic to pull his soul out into the open, though it wasn’t exactly effortless. Puncturing his soul neatly and depressing the plunger, he tossed it onto the surgical tray that still held last evening’s used needles.

“My turn,” the boy sighed, gesturing outwards from his sternum and revealing his own soul, looking down at its flickering frailty. After his first injection, it had been almost impossible to convince himself to administer his second, especially without Gaster’s presence to somewhat alleviate the fear, but something had driven him onwards.

He felt something spurring him onwards yet again and found himself hesitating very little, quickly finishing the injection and bracing himself for the consuming exhaustion that seemed to follow in his case. Yet when he laid down in his bed of assorted linens and a pillow brought from the bedroom, sleep was nowhere as swift to arrive as he expected.

Blaming it on the anxieties of his circumstances, or a few too many afternoon cups of coffee, he did his best to get comfortable and keep his mind on the lighter side of things until sleep took him at last.

His dreams were dark and empty, offering him a glimpse into the blackness of nothing, but he felt himself continually drifting in and out of touch with the awareness of his subconscious. He couldn't quite grasp onto himself enough to wake up, nor could he seem to pull himself into the plane where his dreams tried to stitch themselves together - he was unsure of which he wanted to begin with.

On one hand, he still had a mountain of questions to ask Chara, but the thought of encountering them was heart-pounding. What if they tried to kill him again? What if, this time, he didn't have Gaster to jump in and rescue him?

_Wait._ Boli felt himself almost jolt back to consciousness as the realization struck him like an open hand to the forehead. _That’s it! I’ve been able to encounter Gaster before when we were both unconscious under the effects of Determination! Maybe, somehow, if I can just get to him, he’ll be able to tell me what I can do to help him wake up! But how do I even…?_

It seemed no matter how hard he tried up until this point, he couldn’t grip onto his awareness enough to gain control of himself in this realm, but now, he felt new willpower pushing him on. Straining harder still, he managed to pull darkness over himself, croaking out Gaster’s name with a voice that felt like it had never been used. Flexing his hands open and closed, he tentatively stepped forward on the empty blackness stretching before him.

_This is it. I’m here._

Despite the dizzying fog settling in on his mind, Boli cleared his throat and called out once again, this time managing a relatively sturdy shout that was eerily swallowed up by the emptiness. In the distance, he saw an incongruence - a break in the darkness. Two figures, both badly blurred, like he was looking at them through frosted glass. As he closed in on them, their voices were indistinct, but that didn’t stop him from immediately recognizing the other alongside the Royal Scientist.

The Phoenix, glowing radiantly orange as ever before, showing no signs of the weakness that had Boli had seen in it before he awoke last time. Neither of them had noticed him yet, leaned together in private conversation. Oddly, Boli found it difficult to bring himself to intrude. It wasn’t until Gaster, in a manner that was jarringly out of character, suddenly draped  his arms around the strange creature with exhaustion and vulnerability laid bare, that Boli finally found his voice.

“Gaster?”

Immediately, the Phoenix broke out of Gaster’s embrace, phasing through him to swing to face Boli instead, taking on an attack stance; but he scarcely noticed, as he couldn’t focus on anything but Gaster’s expression. He’d never seen him look this way - caught in the headlights. Caught doing something he was not supposed to do. It made something flip over and churn in his midsection, and he couldn’t look away.

“Boli, how did - why are you-?” Gaster demanded in a tripping voice, holding his arm horizontally across the Phoenix’s chest in the meantime as if he needed to hold it back, though upon realizing who the intruder was, it had relaxed.

Ruffled by the accusatory tone Gaster chose to use against _him_ in this moment, as if he was somehow delving into a private space with malicious intent and not trying to _save_ him, Boli bristled in the other skeleton’s direction, spitting, “did you forget about the real world, busy here with that... _thing_?”

It was the phoenix’s turn to bristle now, and it drew itself up in a haughty, arrogant way that was decisively… Gaster-like. Much to his surprise, though, it sounded almost amused as it retorted, “thing? Now, is that any way to refer to that which gave you life?”

Bewildered, Boli looked towards Gaster. Did it think Boli was calling _him_ a thing? How would it know Gaster made him? For that matter, how had it known his name last time?

“W-why do you know s-so much about me?” he demanded before he could stop himself, though raising his voice made him feel a little unsteady on his feet, an unnerving reminder that his connection to this place was tenuous at best.

The stunned expression on Gaster’s face had now escalated to unbridled panic, and he turned to the phoenix, uttering a low plead of, “please don’t.”

“If _you_ won’t tell him, Aster, I will. Don’t test me.”

Eyes stretching wide at the sheer volume of _attitude_ the creature shot at the Royal Scientist, Boli held his breath in anticipation of Gaster’s response. But he only closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with both hands for a rather long moment before at last turning towards the boy, exhaustion casting shadows beneath his sockets.

“Boli, this is Portulaca. My…” He stopped, seeming to not have a word before concluding, “well, you know.”

A pit rivalling the emptiness around him opened up in Boli’s midsection as he dared to look towards the phoenix - Portulaca. “But you’re… he… w-w-when I… you can’t be here?” he struggled with his words, feeling reality spin around him.

“You’re s-s-supposed to be DEAD!” He burst out ferociously, leaping forward and placing himself in between the other two monsters. It wasn’t until he was there that he realized electricity was crackling in his skull, coursing down his arms and sending arcs of green light from his fingertips down into the nothingness. An attack, begging to be discharged, fueled by anger that had never found justification to exist before this moment. But, just as quickly as it surged forth, he could feel it beginning to drain away as he realized this was what Gaster must have felt not long before he had collapsed.

And it wasn’t worth hurting anyone over.

The other two seemed to realize just as quickly as he did that he wasn’t going to attack, leaving him to turn to Gaster. “Why isn’t she dead?”

Gaster fumbled for words in a way Boli had never seen before, leaving his mind to race a hundred miles an hour, arriving at no coherent answers on its own. In the end, it was Portulaca that spoke up.

“You told him I was dead, hm? You told him you killed me? In cold blood, I imagine - what a way to strike fear into a little boy’s heart. To claim you killed one you love so heartlessly for your own gain and bury your guilt so deeply. The depth of your depravity shocks me, Aster.”

Every word felt like a needle driven into Boli’s ribcage, because they were so close to true. He could only imagine how Gaster must feel.

“I never told him I loved you.” The specific section of words Gaster chose to deny, he realized, were possibly the worst, and he bit his tongue. All the times he’d avoided smiling as he said her name made the words empty, and he knew that Boli had seen through it all. The boy’s mind, perhaps, wasn’t as quick as his, but his heart was far sharper than his could ever hope to be. “Agh - that’s not important!” He interrupted any reaction the words might incite from either of them, turning to address Boli.

“I had no idea that this might happen - that her soul might keep her... “present” like this. Holding a monster soul in stasis this way has never been properly researched! I had an... incident in the Underlab while checking up on her, but-”

“She’s in the Underlab!?” Boli interrupted. Suddenly, his mind jolted back to the memory of seeing Gaster skulking into an unmonitored room. So he’d been going to see her then. If only he had remembered to see what had been in that room - it would be far better than being blindsided like this.

“Ah, uh…” The Royal Scientist looked from Portulaca to Boli, wringing his hands in front of his chest. “Yes. The vast majority of her life force was exhausted in your creation, but by putting her soul and body into stasis, I’ve prevented her from turning to dust. It was for means of preventing a LV increase-”

“Oh, and there was no sentimentality involved at all, hmm?” Portulaca cut in, the tendrils of orange light representing her arms resting on her hips.

Realizing that there was absolutely no way to talk his way out of any of this with both of them poised to pounce on his words and rip them to shreds, Gaster forced himself to hold his tongue. While Portulaca sounded almost amused by it all - and why wouldn’t she be, being nothing more than a bundle of memories a void with little to lose? - he could tell by the distance in Boli’s eyes that the boy was simply struggling to hold himself together.

“Boli.” Gaster said the boy’s name gently, turning away from Portulaca to kneel before him. Though unsure if he would retaliate, he put both hands gingerly on the other skeleton’s shoulders - even if he did react violently, there wasn’t much he could do to him here. Probably.

“If I had ever thought something like this could happen, I promise I would have found a time to bring this up with you. But I truly believed that, for all intents and purposes, her life was at its end. This is the first time I’ve seen her here - I swear on my soul.”

Bitterness boiled in Boli’s windpipe. The words - Gaster’s words - he regurgitated burned on their way out: “You’ll have to forgive me if I put little merit into that promise.”

Gaster’s hands fell away from Boli’s shoulders and his skull drooped low, sockets closed, as if the words had physically struck him and he needed a moment to absorb the pain. Eventually, he looked back up to the boy, nodding. “I understand.”

With the calmness of Gaster’s acceptance, the conflict reached an impasse. Boli only stared at him - through him, numbly - until he’d lost track of the time, unsure of what the other two were even doing. He wasn’t sure if either of them were even still there. Or if he was.

Everything he’d been told was a lie. It was always a lie. There was no point in pretending that he was anything more than fallacies he’d been told, stitched together like some sort of hapless voodoo doll out of touch with reality. No point in pretending he was better than nothing.

_*You sound like you want to stay here, with me. Ha, ha._ A familiar voice on the edge of his hearing pulled him back into his body and he looked around, but he couldn’t locate where Chara’s voice was coming from - and, judging by Gaster’s clueless expression and the fact Portulaca hadn’t fled, neither of them could hear it, either.

_*I think I’d welcome the company. But you’d never let that happen, huh?_ Suddenly, Chara appeared as nothing more than a red outline, similar to Portulaca’s appearance - though markedly more detailed and solid - reclined in a lying position in the emptiness above the other two. Still, neither of them reacted. _*You’re here for a reason, after all. Or did you forget? You used_ my _Determination to get here, you know. You’re really gonna waste it and get stuck here with them?_

Confused for about a thousand different reasons - the first being why it seemed like they were trying to help him when, last time he’d seen them, they were seconds away from mercilessly hacking him to bits - Boli only stared slack-jawed at where they floated.

_*C’mon, smiley trashbag, don’t just stare at me. You want to get him out of here, don’t you? You’re not going to accomplish that with your frankly breathtaking dissociation._

They were right; as awful as everything felt right down to his marrow in this moment, he couldn’t let his foray into this place amount to nothing. There would be time for this later, when they were safe and sound in the real world. _I keep saying that. “There’ll be time.” But how much time do I really have?_

_*You’re not extending it by dithering here, that’s for sure,_ Chara pointed out; taken aback, he looked up at them.

_Get out of my head, kid,_ he fired the thought up to them, but they merely shrugged, almost innocently.

_*Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t tell you so. Staying here for too long is a baaad idea. The dark starts to get hungry after a while._ And with that - possibly the most ominous words anyone had ever spoken to him - Chara was gone once again, just as suddenly as they had appeared.

It was then that Boli realized he really _had_ been “breathtakingly dissociating,” as he almost immediately became aware that Gaster had, at some point, sat down on the invisible floor of the nothingness they were all suspended in and pulled him into his lap, cradling him like a child in need of comfort. It was… humiliating.

Pushing himself away from Gaster and standing, the boy calmly brushed himself off as if sweeping away the coddling affront. The Royal Scientist looked stunned once more - his choice emotion for this entire encounter - but Boli paid it no mind, taking a deep breath to ready himself.

“How long do you _think_ you’ve been here, Gaster?” He asked in a voice that was light and sly, a manipulative ploy to coax the other monster to tell him how much he thought he knew. So that Boli could, in turn, break it down; show him how _little_ he knew. He’d learned the tactic from the best.

It didn’t quite work, though, as Gaster merely shrugged, leaning his weight back to rest on one palm against the ground. “I imagine you’re about to clear that right up.”

Abandoning his brief attempt at toying with Gaster before it really occurred to him he was trying to in the first place, Boli squared his shoulders, leering down to the scientist where he sat. “Two days, Gaster. Did you ever think about w-what’s going on in the real world? How w-worried I must be? Or w-were you too busy with _her_?” Jerking his chin towards where Portulaca stood, arms crossed, his mouth pulled into a sneer.

Gaster blinked once, slowly, before pushing himself to his feet, looming over Boli with an icy calmness that, in the waking world, would strike fear into him. But here, it did nothing. “You’re assuming far too much, Boli. You’re assuming that I haven’t been wandering around for what feels like weeks; assuming I didn’t call for you first. I called for you, I called for Toriel, Asgore… Chara. But nobody came.”

Something in the darkness - the heaviness - of Gaster’s words sent a chill down Boli’s spine. Looking away from the scientist’s borderline blank stare, he clicked his index fingers together in a nervous gesture he couldn’t shake off. Part of him expected the other skeleton to go on, to elaborate on all his woes, but it soon occurred to Boli that, instead, Gaster was waiting for what he had to say next.

His first instinct was to ask why he would ever think to call for _Chara,_ a dead human child, but it suddenly seemed rather obvious. Of course Ilea and himself wouldn’t be the only monsters to see them under the influence of their very own Determination - but was what Gaster saw a genuine hallucination, or actually them? Why had he never mentioned it?

_Probably because he lies and withholds information whenever possible,_ Boli sneered inwardly, struggling to get his mind off the cynical thoughts and back to what mattered at the moment.  “W-whatever. Forget all that, forget _her_ , for now. I’m just here to get you back to the real w-world, alright?” He hissed, kicking his toe frustratedly against the ground.

“And I suppose you have a way of doing that?” Gaster asked, dryly.

“You’re the genius here, Gaster, w-why don’t you tell me.”

“So you’ve come with the intention to help and absolutely no help to give, then? You are only offering attitude thus far.”

“You’re one to talk!”

Gaster began to gear up for a sharp reprisal - Boli could tell by the dark gleam in his sockets - but before he could quite spit it out, Portulaca gave a long, droll sigh. “Don’t you ever tire of this, darling? The back-and-forth - it’s for children. We’re all much better than that. Come now, tell one-another how you _really_ feel so we can get on with our lives - and deaths - hm?”

Briefly, the Royal Scientist’s brow creased and his jaw clenched with annoyance very apparent to Boli, but he seemed to push it down, closing his sockets and rubbing his palm against his face, rather hard.

Finally, he let his hand drop, gazing down at Boli tiredly. “As of right now, the fact that you’re here at all leaves me more concerned about how _you_ will be getting back, much less helping me. This is looking much less like a rescue and more like a suicide with each passing moment.”

Soul sinking with dread, Boli looked down to his feet. Minutes ago, he’d found it harder to stay tethered here more than anything - it hadn’t yet occurred to him that getting back was an entire other obstacle he had yet to take into consideration.

“I… I’ll be fine, Gaster. I only took my regular dose of D.T - there’s no reason for me to not wake up. Your condition is w-what w-we really need to talk about right now.” Unsure of how aware Gaster was about the unfolding of things, how much he remembered, he took a fortifying breath before continuing. “You just s-straight up collapsed, remember? No w-warning or anything.”

Blinking a few times, Gaster nodded reluctantly in confirmation. “Yes. And prior to that I was experiencing another “D.T bleed.” I take it you already looked into the cause of that-”

“Yeah, it was just as indeterminable as last time,” Boli confirmed.

“And you took a detailed reading of my soul?”

“All mostly normal, nothing that could cause _this._ ”

“I presume you also ran a standard healing cycle to be thorough, and-”

“Double checked, triple checked. There’s nothing measurably wrong with your soul or body. You just… w-won’t wake up.” The distress at his situation began to crop up as he found himself having to say it aloud, undeniable after being pushed away so many times. “It doesn’t make any s-sense. There’s no reason for this to be happening. It’s… not _fair._ ”

Boli could feel a lump in his windpipe threatening to choke him, but held his tears back in light of his current company. Portulaca had already made a jibe about his childishness; he didn’t want to give her more fuel.

“Well… there is one thing,” the Royal Scientist muttered cautiously, lacking any of his usual surety. Guilt bit into him as Boli immediately straightened up, hopeful, at the words. If anything, the possibility was worse news than the boy had gotten thus far. “You know of the… “fallen down” condition, yes?”

Knowledge Boli had been made with rushed through his mind like a flash flood, and he nodded quickly. “Yeah, that’s w-when a monster reaches a natural end to their lifespan and collapses, then they turn to dust soon after. But… you’re a Boss Monster, Gaster, you can’t “fall down” - you’re supposed to live forever.”

“Unless he’s had a child with another Boss Monster,” Portulaca contributed unhelpfully, with an edge to her voice - they all knew he hadn’t.

Clearing his throat, Gaster half-turned away from both of them. “Well, that is the predominant cause, yes. In very uncommon cases, the condition can be caused by, for lack of a better word, a “jam” in a monster’s soul, preventing signals from travelling freely throughout it, which results in a coma-like state. It’s… a stretch, but that sort of thing was known to happen after dramatic environmental changes or significant injury... even severe stress can cause it. I saw many cases like that when we were first driven underground.”

“...It happens to be the only situation in which the “fallen down” condition is possible to reverse. Even then, it’s far from 100% successful, but…” Trailing off, Gaster forced himself to look back to Boli, though it was almost painful to see the unbridled hope growing in his expression.

Swallowing hard, Gaster stepped towards Boli, putting a hand on his shoulder gingerly. “You need to understand something, Boli. XP, LV - they are not sentient. They do not understand the complexities of situations such as these. If I am not strong enough to survive the procedure, I will turn to dust and it will be on your hands. The XP of a Boss Monster would be substantial. If things go awry, you will be ruined forever and I will be dead. Do you understand?”

Much to his surprise, Boli scarcely blinked at the words, lifting his chin. Something shimmered in his sockets - a resoluteness, a knowledge. “This isn’t how you die, Gaster. I’d bet every soul in the underground on it.”

A chill ran up Gaster’s spine at the words and he looked away, trying to find the words to ask how the boy could be so certain in such a bleak situation. But he didn’t manage to in time, for suddenly Boli spoke up again.

“Wait. What happened to you _expecting_ me to kill you?” Tilting his head, he looked to Gaster curiously. “LV w-was always going to be a side effect of that, s-so why are you concerned all of a sudden?”

Not sure how to respond, though he knew the answer with an ache in his soul, he shook his skull slowly. “I… you are. But I… it’s difficult for me to say.”

“Please. The great Gaster, not having an answer to something so simple? Even I can see it.” Portulaca spoke up suddenly in a hiss, the flames in her eyes burning brighter. “Are you so foolish that you’d repeat this mistake, knowing full well you are doing so? Tell him, Aster.”

Stunned by the impatience and anger in her voice, Gaster felt himself cringe before he could hide it. Being stuck in purgatory surely hadn’t softened her temperament. But she was right - he did know, and to say nothing would add another injustice to a list that did not need to be compounded further.

“...I love you too much to see you become any more like me.” His voice was slow, tremulous, his mouth tight as he tried to hide the emotions that came with the simple confession. “I am unsure when, but it became very obvious to me at some point that to burden you with my sins when I leave this world would be… Something I could not stand to do. You’re too beloved to me for that.”

Tears pricked the corners of Boli’s sockets at the words, and he nodded. That was all he needed to hear. That was everything. “Just tell me what I have to do to get you back on your feet, Gaster. I’ll take care of the rest. You _don’t_ die here. This isn’t the end, not as long as I’ve got the reigns.”

_*And who said that?_ Chara asked from somewhere so far away they were barely audible. _*Since when are you the one that is in control?_ But their voice was so quiet, so weak, that Boli was soon to forget even for all the menace that the words held. The words didn't stay with him when he returned to the waking world, the knowledge he needed to save Gaster kept firmly grasped in his mind.


End file.
